Customer Reviews

Jackson Pollock (Getting to Know the World's Greatest Artists)

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I took last summer my two daugthers, age 6 and 9 to the Museum of Modern Art in New York. They loved it and each one choose her favorita artist. The younger one, Isabel, loved Picasso. Who doesn't?. My older daughter, Camila loved the american artist Jackson Pollock, she sat in front of his masterpiece One, admiring all that aparently no-sense. Its beautiful, she told me, and I sure can do that. She's not very good in art class and she felt identified with this painter's work. Wanting to explain his art I found a wonderful book, part of a series written by Mike Venezia about the great artists. In the case of Jackson Pollock, the author mixing words, comics and paintings explains in a fun way the wonders of the work of this artist. Pollock was the brother of a painter and went to study art as his brother did in New York, he tought he wasn't very good at it. But working and studyng with contemporary painters helped to create his personal style making him one of America's biggest contemporary artist. Try explaining that to your kid, don't bother. Mike Venezia will do the job.

Mike Venezia's Getting to Know the World's Greatest Artists series is dedicated to the principle of introduction children to art and artists in fun ways. His primary way of doing that is to draw engaging cartoons that highlight not only biographical information about his subjects, but which also focus on key elements of the artist's work. That means this book about Jackson Pollock plays to Venezia's strengths, and he gets to do two jokes about using an eggbeater. If you count the front and back covers, Venezia gets to do nine of his cartoons, which may not be a record but it sure seems like one for this series, which also provides solid introductions to great artists from Da Vinci to Dali.

This book begins by pointing out that Pollock was one of hte greatest artists of the 20th century and that he was best known for huge paintings made by slapptering, throwing, and dripping paint onto this canvases. Then Venezia spends the rest of this informative and entertaining volume explaining how the latter leads to the former. Young readers learn how Pollock painted, what his work was called (Abstract Expressionism) versus what he called it (Action Painting), and how they emphasized emotions and energey rather than recognizable objects. The middle part of the books covers the key aspects of Pollock's life, but the best part is when Venezia details how Pollock developed his style, because that is where young readers are going to get a mini-education in art history.

Early on Pollock was trying to paint like Thomas Hart Benton, and Venezia contrasts Benton's "Arts of the West" with Pollock's "Going West," to show how that did not really work out. Paintings by Jose Clemente Oroczco and Pablo Picasso's "Guernica" also become reference points as Venezia traces the evolution of Pollock's art, culminating in "Blue Poles." The book touches on Pollock's unhappinesss without getting into detail, but that is appropriate for an introductory look at his life and art. In the end, Venezia underscores how Pollock was not just throwing paint around and that he knew exactly what he was doing. It is suggested that seeing Jackson Pollock's paintings in person is a good thing, so it is helpful that Venezia explains where the paintings in this book come from so you have an idea of where to go to see some of them (but be careful, because some of these references are for the works by the other artists).

Informative book about the late author for elementary school level children. Also a great artist to study and try to replicate. My students have a blast learning about Jackson Pollock then creating their own splattered masterpiece!

I purchased this book to go with an art lesson I had planned. It really got across how and why Jackson Pollack did his art his way. We then did splatter art with kitchen utensils! fun!

I use these for teaching to kids in art classes. They love the comics in them, the pictures keep them interested, and they are very educational. I am a HUGE fan! Most books in the series cover the artist, art style, and pertinent art history. Pollock is just a wonderful artist for kids to learn how to experiment with media and style.