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Jackson Pollock
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Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 708
EAN: 9780870700682
ISBN: 0870700685
Label: The Museum of Modern Art, New York
Manufacturer: The Museum of Modern Art, New York
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 336
Publication Date: June 15, 2002
Publisher: The Museum of Modern Art, New York
Release Date: July 02, 2002
Studio: The Museum of Modern Art, New York
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Editorial Review:
The almost mythic Jackson Pollock--a roughshod, ill-mannered, prodigiously ambitious, aggressive, alcoholic, tormented artist--is alive and unwell in this book. But Kirk Varnedoe and Pepe Karmel, the chief curator and adjunct assistant curator, respectively, of the Museum of Modern Art's Department of Painting and Sculpture, also go deeply into Pollock's art in eye-opening ways. This book is the catalog for the retrospective of Pollock's art-shattering oeuvre at the Museum of Modern Art in the fall of 1998 and includes many biographical pictures as well as color plates of Pollock's paintings, from the awkward but earnest early works to the late, great, famous canvasses. Varnedoe's essay, aptly titled "Comet: Jackson Pollock's Life and Work," deftly invites the reader into Pollock's world, starting with his country studio: "The structure, often called a barn, is in fact more like a glorified tool shed." Karmel's essay, "Pollock at Work: The Films and Photographs of Hans Namuth," is a truly groundbreaking exploration of Pollock's technique. Karmel has scrutinized every frame of every piece of film, still or moving, ever taken of Pollock painting. He arrives at absolutely original conclusions: Pollock's all-over swirls of dripped and flung paint often began as figurative works and clearly relate to such all-American stalwarts as Thomas Hart Benton. Karmel makes countless other sharp observations, noting the difference, for example, between fast-looking marks and the slow, deliberate movements with which they were made (and vice versa). His essay is a work of brilliant scholarship, written thrillingly, and it will forever change the way any serious viewer looks at Pollock's paintings. It makes this volume absolutely essential for understanding the work of this great, sad artist. --Peggy Moorman
Jackson Pollock is widely considered the most challenging and influential American artist of the 20th century. In his revolutionary paintings of the late 1940s, he dripped paint into complex webs of interlacing lines, rhythmically punctuated by pools of color. With their allover composition, apparent abstraction, and spontaneous but controlled paint handling, these powerful works announced the emergence of Abstract Expressionism. This sumptuously illustrated book offers a fresh overview of his achievement, reinterpreted for a new generation and features a complete visual record of the artist's work, including over 200 color reproductions of paintings, drawings, and prints, enhanced by life-sized details, foldouts, and documentary photographs. An essay by Kirk Varnedoe explores Pollock's life, the mythology that so quickly grew up around him as the prototypical "action painter", and the different critical schools that have tried to lay claim to his legacy. Pepe Karmel offers new insight into Pollock's famous "drip" technique, as revealed by an intensive, computer-assisted study of photographs and films of Pollock at work. This volume was published to accompany the first major survey of the artist's career since 1967, held in 1998 at The Museum of Modern Art, New York.
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating: - Pollock, only Pollock, nothing else but Pollock
This is the catalogue for the landmark Pollock exhibition held at the Moma and the Tate in 1998-1999. Considering the steep rise in the insurance value of Pollock's paintings, such a comprehensive retrospective is not likely to be repeated in the near future and we are therefore fortunate to have such a brilliant book to help us remember it. The late Kirk Varnedoe was one of the best interpreters of contemporary American art and his text, never anecdotical and always informative without being pedantic, ... Read More
Rating: - simply the best
This breathtaking catalogue is simply the best single volume available on Jackson Pollock, and this is primarily--but not only--because of the number and quality of the reproductions it offers. Almost every one of the dozen or so Pollock books in my library contains a painting not available in the others, but this book collects and beautifully photographs the greatest number and variety of his canvases--outside of a catalogue raisonee.
As the other reviewers state, there are many generously-sized fold ... Read More
Rating: - Best Reproductions and Most Complete
I picked this book up at the MOMA Pollock retrospective a couple years ago and have used it extensively. Having seen many of the paintings in this book firsthand, I can say that these are some of the best reproductions offerred in book form on Pollock's work. Another plus is that several paintings are printed on fold-out pages, so that the work doesn't cross the book's seam. So many of his paintings are extremely wide that this makes a lot of sense (otherwise, there would be hardly any resolution in the ... Read More
Rating: - Pollock Without the Boring Mythologizing
Excellent companion piece to the MOMA show (which traveled to London's Tate) goes beyond all other Pollock explorations. A "must" for students of modern American art as well as those just wanting to get a better understanding of what Pollock was REALLY DOING.
Large format features fold-out reproductions of breathtakingly high quality. Among these, incredibly, are paintings not found in any other published sources. (The incomparable Lucifer (1947) is one such work).
The text is scholarly ... Read More
Rating:  - Very good overview of the MoMA exhibition
Having just taken in the MoMA show, I was very satisfied with the Pollock catalog. Very nice job reproducing the works (a difficult task in the printing of art catalogs!) Many fold-outs assist in conveying the size of Pollock's larger works. Large, full-bleed detail shots add a nice touch, complimenting the entire painting. While I'm not thrilled with the cover design, the interior is well-written, well-presented, and well-worth reading.
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