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ISBN: PB: 9781892850133

University of Chicago Press, McMullen Museum of Art, Boston College

November 2007

178 pp.

28x28 cm

282 colour plates

PB:
£41,50
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Pollock Matters

Legendary abstract expressionist painter Jackson Pollock (1912-1956) is most famous for the frenetic, highly textured works created through his trademark "drip" technique in which he poured paint from its can directly onto the canvas".Pollock Matters" explores, for the first time, the personal and artistic interrelationship between the notorious artist and noted Swiss-born photographer and graphic designer Herbert Matter. Published to coincide with an exhibition at Boston College's McMullen Museum of Art, "Pollock Matters" traces a close friendship that spanned almost two decades, beginning in 1936 when the men's future wives, painters Lee Krasner and Mercedes Carles, met after being sent to jail for protesting Works Progress Administration cutbacks. The friendship continued until Pollock's tragic death in an automobile accident in the summer of 1956. Featuring compelling visual and documentary evidence, including over 150 illustrations, this book demonstrates a critically important chain of influence between two creative individuals not addressed in previous studies of their respective careers".Pollock Matters" reveals the crucial role that Herbert Matter's technical innovations played in helping to stimulate Pollock's radical artistic conception of "energy made visible". A previously unknown body of small drip paintings labeled by Matter as "Jackson experimentals" is presented here along with scientific analysis of the works. This volume will be essential reading for anyone seeking an enriched understanding of Jackson Pollock's life and work or the history of abstract painting.


Contents:

Director's Preface
Nancy Netzer

Introduction
Claude Cernuschi and Ellen G. Landau

Action/Re-Action: The Artistic Friendship of Herbert Matter and Jackson Pollock
Ellen G. Landau

Jackson Pollock's Vitalism: Herbert Matter and the Vitalist Tradition
Jonathan D. Katz

Cutting Pollock Down to Size: The Boundaries of the Poured Technique
Claude Cernuschi and Andrzej Herczynski

Abstract Expressionism and Fractal Geometry
Claude Cernuschi, Andrzej Herczynski, and David Martin

Scientific Examination of the Paint on Nine Matter Paintings
Richard Newman and Michele Derrick

Analyzing Jackson Pollock: Scientific Methods and the Study of the Matter Paintings
Nicholas Eastaugh

What It Says on the Tin: A Preliminary Study of the Set of Paint Cans and the Floor in the Pollock-Krasner Studio
Nicholas Eastaugh and Bhavini Gorsia

Fingerprinting Jackson Pollock?
Peter Paul Biro

Appendix I: Notes on Conservation of the Matter Paintings
Appendix II: Chronology of the Relationship of the Matters and Pollocks
Prepared with the assistance of Nancy Cohen, Jeffrey Head, and Michael R. Weil, Jr.

About the Author

Ellen G. Landau is the Andrew W. Mellon Professor of the Humanities at Case Western Reserve University.

Claude Cernuschi is professor of art history at Boston College.