NEWS
Jackson Pollock Made 'Ties' and
'Wallpaper'
Jackson Pollock: A Collection
Survey, 1934–1954
By Blake Gopnik
THE DAILY PIC (#1494): “It would make a most
enchanting printed silk," said Sir Leigh Ashton,
director of the Victoria and Albert Museum.
Theodore Greene, Professor of Philosophy
at Yale, said it reminded him of “a pleasant
design for a necktie" while Aldous Huxley, the
illustrious author, said “it seems to me like a
panel for a wallpaper." These august personages
were convened for a Life magazine round table
on art in October of 1948, and the picture they
were commenting on was a recent Jackson
Pollock – similar to this painting called Number
1A, 1948 that's in MoMA's current survey of its
Pollock holdings, about which I've been writing
all week.
If Life's three sages weren't just talking in the
most general terms, it seems that a bunch of
modern textile designers must have come to
Pollock's alloverisms before he did – so much so
that their products instantly sprang to mind for
three quite conservative men. Here's one textile
I was able to find that may
have been the kind of thing
the Lifemen were thinking
of:abextextile
It was designed in England
before 1944 (well before
Pollock had hit his
stride, that is) and then
silkscreened onto silk
yardage by John Heathcoat
& Co. in around 1946.That gives it an automatic
connection to the Pollock
silkscreens that I discussed
on Tuesday: Silkscreening's
roots in textiles helped
give the technique its
democratic aura. And it
brings my week of Pollock-ing full circle, to the
claims I was making Monday about the artist's
well-camouflaged links to the “feminine" and
the world of women's work.Abstract Expressionism may have billed itself as
the purest of pure art, an upwelling direct from
the artist's soul and psyche, but it's no surprise
to find that it had roots deep in the world and
moment it came out of. And maybe in its fabric
stores. (© 2016 Pollock-Krasner Foundation /
Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York)art NEWS
Pregnant Girl, depicting Bernardine Coverley
carrying Lucian Freud's child Bella, which is going
up for auction and could sell for as much as
£10million