Page 31 - Studio International - June 1973

Blue Poles (Number 11). 1952 or 53. Enamel and aluminium paint, glass, on canvas, 6 ft II in. x 16 ft. Coll : Mr and Mrs Ben Heller, New York

replaced 'colours that go well together' with scale of his paintings. When Lee Krasner 'Quoted by Lee Krasner in an interview with Bruce
abrupt or unexpected juxtapositions of raw- Pollock was asked in a 1969 interview about the Glaser, Arts Magazine, Vol. 41, No. 6, April 1967,
p. 38.
looking colour ? The kind of paint that Pollock possible connection of the black and white and 'Pollock, as quoted by Lee Krasner in 'Who Was
used for his sweeping arabesques, usually some of the coloured paintings 'with the feel of Jackson Pollock ?' Interviews by Francine du
industrial enamel interwoven occasionally with the East Hampton landscape, particularly in Plessix and Cleve Gray, Art in America, Vol. 55,
No. 3, May-June 1967, p. 5 1.
aluminium, has something to do with that winter: the look of bare trees against the sky and 'Conversation with the author, October 22,1971.
uncooked appearance and a great deal to do with flat land moving out toward the sea', she 4Harold Rosenberg, 'The American Action
the directness and immediacy that Pollock referred to the published statement of Pollock's Painters', Art News, Vol. 51, No. 8, December,
1952, p. 22.
achieves. Moreover, if one considers the quoted above, saying, 'Then (1944) he 'Ibid., p. 23.
expressive range of Pollock's colour and its emphasized the West, but by the time of the 'Ibid., p. 48.
appropriateness to the specific character of each black-and-white show, after living in Springs Ibid., p. 49.
'Ibid., p. 48.
painting, it is difficult not to conclude that here for six years, I think he would have given just as 'Albert Camus, The Fall, New York, 1956, p. 133.
again an astonishing delicacy and refinement are much emphasis to this eastern Long Island "Quoted in Rudi Blesh, Modern Art USA, New
at work: Autumn Rhythm's sere brown, tan and landscape — and seascape. They were part of his York, 1956, pp. 253-54.
"Pollock, quoted in Selden Rodman, Conversations
black, shot with glimpses of crisp teal blue; the consciousness : the horizontality he speaks of, with Artists, New York, 1957, p. 82.
pearly hues of the spectrum gleaming in and the sense of endless space, and the "Pollock, 'My Painting', Possibilities, 1, Winter,
Phosphorescence, or almost submerged by freedom.'38 She and his close friends tell of how 1947- 48, p. 49.
"Rosenberg, op. cit., p. 23.
tempest in Grey Rainbow; the sombre gnarled he would walk or sit with them for hours "See particularly 'Some Points about Action
and thick black, grey and ochre of Ocean without speaking, staring at the grass, the sea Painting, A Conversation between Thomas B. Hess
Greyness; and the golden warmth of summer in and the sky. Tony Smith says Pollock would and Harold Rosenberg', Action Painting, Dallas
Museum for Contemporary Art, 1958.
No. 5, 1948. In Blue Poles the barn-barn-barn of take him to see the places he especially liked and "L. K. Pollock in 'An Interview with Lee Krasner
the bright red, blue and yellow, flung and `on clear nights we would get out of the car and Pollock by B. H. Friedman', Marlborough-Gerson
dripped along with the white, black and look at the stars.'" Alfonso Ossorio wrote that Gallery, New York, Jackson Pollock: Black and
White, March 1969, p. 10.
aluminium, corresponds to the powerful beat Pollock 'knew every inch of the Island, the "Robert Goodnough, 'Pollock paints a picture', Art
of the blue poles as they swing across the canvas. dunes, the northwest woods, the beaches News, Vol. L, May 1951, pp. 38 ff. The picture
John Russell speaks of 'great pounding between here (East Hampton) and Montauk, all Pollock painted, identified in the article as
Number 4, 1950, is the work that he later named
rhythms'36 — a vivid allusion, even if unintended, of them. Fifteen years ago no one went to these Autumn Rhythm, now in the Metropolitan Museum,
to the majestic beat of the Atlantic surf. In one beaches.'4° When I asked Lee Pollock if New York. It is sometimes given as Number 3o,
of Pollock's extremely rare references to the Jackson had ever talked about what the place 195o.
"Pollock, op. cit., p. 79.
ocean, replying to a question as to why he meant to him, she answered, 'No, but the very "See Gertrude Stein, 'Composition as Explanation',
preferred living in New York to his native West, fact that he moved out there says something.'41 and 'What are Master-pieces and why are there so
he said, 'Living is keener, more demanding, What it says is not just that he 'wanted to get few of them', in What are Masterpieces, Los Angeles,
1940. 'If everyone were not so indolent they would
more intense and expansive in New York than away from the wear and tear' ;42 but it also says realize that beauty is beauty even when it is
in the West: the stimulating influences are more that he deliberately chose to live that kind of life irritating and stimulating not only when it is
accepted and classic', p. 29.
numerous and rewarding. At the same time, I in that particular environment. From the "The important thing is that Cliff Still — you know
have a definite feeling for the West: the vast incessant buzzing of the insects in the grass by his work ? — and Rothko, and I — we've changed the
horizontality of the land, for instance; here only his studio to the nebulae floating in outer space nature of painting'. Quoted in Rodman, op. cit.,
the Atlantic Ocean gives you that.'37 Although and, above all, the everlasting rhythm of the p. 84.
20'An Interview with Jackson Pollock', taped by
that remark slightly antedates his move out to ocean — whether it was roaring in anger, sullen in William Wright, 1950, quoted in Francis V.
Long Island, it indicates some of the natural its cold grey depths, or twinkling through the O'Connor, Jackson Pollock, The Museum of Modern
qualities which attracted him to the locale and gossamer veils of Lavender Mist — the nature he Art, New York, 1967, p. 80.
"Ibid., p. 81.
which are reflected in the sweeping space and loved is in Pollock's paintings. 7 "Lee Krasner Pollock in Francine du Plessix and
261