Nowhere is the complex and destructive painter Jackson Pollock (1912–1956) revealed with more compassion and insight than in this exemplary biography. Friedman, a friend of Pollock's and active in the art world, shows him to be a brilliant man tormented by his relationship to his family; an artist who worked hard through years of poverty to achieve his controversial painting technique; the first American painter to gain an international reputation for himself and for what has been variously called Action Painting or Abstract Expressionism; and a man who struggled with alcohol and the tension between gentleness and violence.Newly illustrated with seminal Pollock paintings, this book takes the reader inside the art world of New York during the '40s and '50s, when Action Painting first emerged. Friedman reveals what it meant to Pollock to experience the invasion of his studio and of the very act of painting by the external pressures of shows, reviews, films, dealers, critics, hostile publicity; and how, despite it all, Pollock created many of the most graceful and powerful paintings ever made in America.
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Book Description
Frequently Bought Together
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Friedman's 1972 illustrated biography of the tormented and controversial Abstract Expressionist includes a new foreword by the author.
Copyright 1995 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
About the Author
Novelist, biographer, playwright, and art critic, B. H. Friedman has written monographs on the artists Lee Krasner, Alfonso Ossorio, and Robert Goodnough, among others. Whispers, one of his six novels, was recommended for a National Book Award.
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
More About the Author
Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Good for its time,
By
This review is from: Jackson Pollock: Energy Made Visible (Paperback)
This may have been one of the better Pollack books when it came out in 1972, but now I think its main use is for die hards who want every detail. And the details are exhausting: galleries, museums, who what where - too much for me. What I was looking for was more process/personal/mindset stuff, and there is some but you have to go through a lot to get to the little of it there is. I recommend "Jackson Pollack" by Ellen G. Landau. Great reproductions and good text.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Authentic and sober analysis,
By
This review is from: Jackson Pollock: Energy Made Visible (Paperback)
I appreciated the authenticity of the author's encounter with Pollock, and the unselfconscious manner of his writing--meaning: he didn't write to elevate his own perception, but to illuminate Pollock and his rich environs and influences. The author's intelligence enriches our understanding of Pollock, and does so in as timely a manner now as in the 70's when the book was originally written.
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Connections,
By
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Jackson Pollock: Energy Made Visible (Paperback)
I was wowed reading this energetic, straightforward book, mainly by the many connections made--how Pollocks studies with the great Mexican muralist Orosco who used used/taught a dripping splashing underpainting technique can logically link to how Pollock got splashing and painting on large scale canvases---to the influence of other artists, such as Picasso, on the early works of Jackson Pollock, to the revelation of Pollock's love of and use of found natural forms...
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
|
|
Inside This Book
(learn more)
First Sentence:
On January 28, 1912, when Jackson Pollock was born in Cody, Wyo , nothing could have seemed less likely to his parents than that this son, their fifth and last, would grow up to be the most famous painter of his generation-a generation destined, for the first time in the history of American art, to achieve international recognition, influence, and fi leadership. Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
unframed space, greatest living painter, younger painters Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
New York, Jackson Pollock, East Hampton, Peggy Guggenheim, Lee Krasner, Museum of Modern Art, Betty Parsons, Lee Pollock, Art News, Tony Smith, Harold Rosenberg, Art of This Century, Blue Poles, Franz Kline, United States, Willem de Kooning, Autumn Rhythm, Clement Greenberg, John Little, Alfonso Ossorio, Ruth Kligman, World War, Art Students League, Helen Marot, David Smith New!
Books on Related Topics | Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
On January 28, 1912, when Jackson Pollock was born in Cody, Wyo , nothing could have seemed less likely to his parents than that this son, their fifth and last, would grow up to be the most famous painter of his generation-a generation destined, for the first time in the history of American art, to achieve international recognition, influence, and fi leadership. Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
unframed space, greatest living painter, younger painters Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
New York, Jackson Pollock, East Hampton, Peggy Guggenheim, Lee Krasner, Museum of Modern Art, Betty Parsons, Lee Pollock, Art News, Tony Smith, Harold Rosenberg, Art of This Century, Blue Poles, Franz Kline, United States, Willem de Kooning, Autumn Rhythm, Clement Greenberg, John Little, Alfonso Ossorio, Ruth Kligman, World War, Art Students League, Helen Marot, David Smith New!
Books on Related Topics | Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Citations (learn more)
This book cites 76
books:
See all 76 books this book cites
17
books
cite this book:
See all 17 books citing this book
- The American Painting by Corcorn Gallery of Art on 12 pages
- Jackson Pollock: Drawing into Painting by Bernice Rose on 4 pages
- Jackson Pollock: An American Saga by Steven Naifeh on 4 pages
- Jackson Pollock by Bryan Robertson on page 106, Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
- The Anxious Object by Harold Rosenberg on page 106, page 305, and Back Matter
See all 76 books this book cites
- The Fate Of A Gesture: Jackson Pollock And Postwar American Art (Icon Editions) by Carter Ratcliff on 4 pages
- Such Desperate Joy: Imagining Jackson Pollack by Helen A. Harrison in Front Matter, page 162, and page 403
- Off the Wall: A Portrait of Robert Rauschenberg by Calvin Tomkins in Back Matter (1), Back Matter (2), and Back Matter (3)
- Abstract Expressionism and the Cultural Logic of Romantic Anti-Capitalism: Dissent during the McCarthy Period (Cambridge Studies in American Visual Culture) by David Craven in Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
- Farewell to an Idea: Episodes from a History of Modernism by Timothy J. Clark in Back Matter
See all 17 books citing this book
Books on Related Topics
(learn more)
|
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
|
|
