One: Number 31, 1950 is a painting by American painter Jackson Pollock, from 1950. It is one of the largest and most prominent examples of the artists Abstract Expressionist drip-style works. [1] The work was owned by a private collector until 1968 when it was purchased by the Museum of Modern Art, in New York, where it has been displayed since then. [2]
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One: Number 31, 1950 is one of three larger-scale drip-style paintings, the other two being Autumn Rhythm (Number 30) and Blue Poles , that Pollock created in 1950 at his iconic barn studio in East Hampton, New York. [3] In the summer of 1950 as One: Number 31, 1950 was being made, photographer Hans Namuth was invited to take photos documenting Pollock's studio and work. [4] Upon arrival, Namuth was initially disappointed because Pollock stated the large oil and enamel paint-topped canvas was finished; however, this sense of dissatisfaction was short lived as Pollock spontaneously took his paintbrush and began slinging black, white, and brown paint onto the canvas in what Namuth recalled “a dancelike fashion.” [4]
This complex mix of “tans, blues, and grays lashed through with black and white” of varying luster was the first of the many paintings that Namuth used to bring Pollock's drip-style painting, where Pollock used sticks, rigid brushes, and other instruments to fling and free handedly throw paint onto a canvas placed the floor beneath him, to the forefront of the art world. [1] [4] The painting constitutes one of the many examples of Pollock's contempt for the Surrealist concept of accident superseding human consciousness in creating art as his drip-style painting technique encapsulated random gravitational effects of paint being flung onto the canvas. [1] Pollock felt that in all of his drip-style painting “there is no accident, just as there is no beginning and no end.” [5] Additionally, while composing artwork like One: Number 31, 1950, Pollock had always been more comfortable on the floor as he stated, “I am more at ease. I feel nearer, more a part of the painting since this way I can walk around it, work from the four sides and literally be in the painting.” [6]
One: Number 31, 1950's juxtaposition of subdued colors with splattering of paint on top represents an indispensable example of Abstract Expressionist artwork. [1] Art historian Stephen Policari considered Pollock's poured painting to represent “a kind of frozen dynamic equilibrium of endless rhythm and energy” and believed the different combinations of curves and straight lines interacted with each other in such a way that created a scheme of light and color so complex that it could not be described in the realm of Euclidean geometry. [2] [6] [7]
Scholars at MoMA think Pollock's unparalleled skill was highlighted through the work's interwoven bands of color which they felt contributed an aura of power and fullness to the painting in its entirety while maintaining a sense of elegance and meticulousness in the details. [1] MoMA scholars also emphasize a sense of fundamental order amidst the chaos and endlessness of One: Number 31, 1950 not containing any principle focal points or patterns; this serves as the foundation of interpretations of the painting in which it symbolized “the pulsing intensity of the modern city, the primal rhythms of nature, and even the infinite depths of the cosmos.” [1]
In 2013, One: Number 31, 1950 was taken down from its spot hanging in MoMA and placed on the ground horizontally, so that conservators could analyze the painting and prepare for its restoration. [8] First, as the painting had only been dusted since entering MoMA's collection in 1968, it was cleaned with sponges and swabbed with a chemically adjusted water solution to remove a yellow grime layer and other accumulated dirt. [2] In physical terms, the painting did not need to be changed as its stretcher held the painting at an appropriate tension, and the canvas was set with an unobtrusive layer of lining adhesive applied that prevented any acid transfer. [2] However, this lining was an indication of prior treatment that would have been completed before 1968; since the conservation record for the painting was minimal before MoMA bought it, the painting may have undergone other treatment as well, so it was compared to a picture of it taken at a show in Portland, Oregon in 1962 to look for discrepancies. [2]
Conservators discovered that an area of cracking, which results from the natural degradation of the actual paint, had been covered with what was confirmed by X-radiograph, ultraviolet examination, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, and X-ray fluorescence spectrometry to be overpaint. [2] Upon further examination and the addition of a chemical solvent, the white overpaint, which covered details of Pollock's work, was used more on the cracks than on losses in the paint layer. [2] In a shift from the 1960s conservational value of a painting being immaculate without any signs of aging, MoMA conservators ultimately made the aesthetic choice to remove the white overpaint on the cracks and merely retouch them with watercolor paint to allow for minimal intrusion into the look of the original painting. [8]
In 2019, One: Number 31, 1950 can be viewed at the MoMA by its more than 3 million annual visitors. [9] Additionally, One: Number 31, 1950 is one of the many Pollock paintings that has undergone fractal analysis that is being used to prove the authenticity of other Pollock works as well as to contribute more insight into fractal geometry in general. [7]
Paul Jackson Pollock was an American painter. A major figure in the abstract expressionist movement, Pollock was widely noticed for his "drip technique" of pouring or splashing liquid household paint onto a horizontal surface, enabling him to view and paint his canvases from all angles. It was called all-over painting and action painting, since he covered the entire canvas and used the force of his whole body to paint, often in a frenetic dancing style. This extreme form of abstraction divided the critics: some praised the immediacy of the creation, while others derided the random effects. In 2016, Pollock's painting titled Number 17A was reported to have fetched US$200 million in a private purchase.
Abstract expressionism was first used in Germany in 1919 in the magazine Der Sturm, regarding German Expressionism. Alfred Barr was the first to use this term in 1929 for works by Wassily Kandinsky.
Helen Frankenthaler was an American abstract expressionist painter. She was a major contributor to the history of postwar American painting. Having exhibited her work for over six decades, she spanned several generations of abstract painters while continuing to produce vital and ever-changing new work. Frankenthaler began exhibiting her large-scale abstract expressionist paintings in contemporary museums and galleries in the early 1950s. She was included in the 1964 Post-Painterly Abstraction exhibition curated by Clement Greenberg that introduced a newer generation of abstract painting that came to be known as color field. Born in Manhattan, she was influenced by Greenberg, Hans Hofmann, and Jackson Pollock's paintings. Her work has been the subject of several retrospective exhibitions, including a 1989 retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, and been exhibited worldwide since the 1950s. In 2001, she was awarded the National Medal of Arts.
Lenore "Lee" Krasner was an American Abstract Expressionist painter and visual artist active primarily in New York. She received her early academic training at the Women's Art School of Cooper Union, and the National Academy of Design from 1928 to 1932. Krasner's exposure to Post-Impressionism at the newly opened Museum of Modern Art in 1929 led to a sustained interest in modern art. In 1937, she enrolled in classes taught by Hans Hofmann, which led her to integrate influences of Cubism into her paintings. During the Great Depression, Krasner joined the Works Progress Administration's Federal Art Project, transitioning to war propaganda artworks during the War Services era.
Franz Kline was an American painter. He is associated with the Abstract Expressionist movement of the 1940s and 1950s. Kline, along with other action painters like Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Robert Motherwell, John Ferren, and Lee Krasner, as well as local poets, dancers, and musicians came to be known as the informal group, the New York School. Although he explored the same innovations to painting as the other artists in this group, Kline's work is distinct in itself and has been revered since the 1950s.
Color field painting is a style of abstract painting that emerged in New York City during the 1940s and 1950s. It was inspired by European modernism and closely related to abstract expressionism, while many of its notable early proponents were among the pioneering abstract expressionists. Color field is characterized primarily by large fields of flat, solid color spread across or stained into the canvas creating areas of unbroken surface and a flat picture plane. The movement places less emphasis on gesture, brushstrokes and action in favor of an overall consistency of form and process. In color field painting "color is freed from objective context and becomes the subject in itself."
Joseph Wiltsie Fuller Potter Jr. was an American Abstract expressionist artist. He was born in New York City in 1910, attended St. Bernard's School in New York and Groton School in Groton, Massachusetts, and lived most of his life in his Ledyard, Connecticut estate, near Old Mystic. Potter started painting in the traditional modes of representation, specializing in still life and landscape. His work was shown in New York in the 1930s at the Marie Harriman Gallery.
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Hans Namuth was a German-born photographer. Namuth specialized in portraiture, photographing many artists, including abstract expressionist Jackson Pollock. His photos of Pollock at work in his studio increased Pollock's fame and recognition and led to a greater understanding of his work and techniques. Namuth used his outgoing personality and persistence to photograph many important artistic figures at work in their studios.
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Drip painting is a form of abstract art in which paint is dripped or poured on to the canvas. This style of action painting was experimented with in the first half of the twentieth century by such artists as Francis Picabia, André Masson and Max Ernst, who employed drip painting in his works The Bewildered Planet, and Young Man Intrigued by the Flight of a Non-Euclidean Fly (1942). Ernst used the novel means of painting Lissajous figures by swinging a punctured bucket of paint over a horizontal canvas.
Janet Sobel, born Jennie Olechovsky, was a Ukrainian-born American Abstract Expressionist painter whose career started mid-life, at age forty-five in 1938. Sobel pioneered the drip painting technique that directly influenced Jackson Pollock. She was credited as exhibiting the first instance of all-over painting seen by Clement Greenberg, a notable art critic.
Minimalism describes movements in various forms of art and design, especially visual art and music, where the work is set out to expose the essence, essentials or identity of a subject through eliminating all non-essential forms, features or concepts. As a specific movement in the arts it is identified with developments in post–World War II Western Art, most strongly with American visual arts in the 1960s and early 1970s. Prominent artists associated with this movement include Ad Reinhardt, Nassos Daphnis, Tony Smith, Donald Judd, John McCracken, Agnes Martin, Dan Flavin, Robert Morris, Larry Bell, Anne Truitt, Yves Klein and Frank Stella. Artists themselves have sometimes reacted against the label due to the negative implication of the work being simplistic. Minimalism is often interpreted as a reaction to abstract expressionism and a bridge to postminimal art practices.
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Fractal expressionism is used to distinguish fractal art generated directly by artists from fractal art generated using mathematics and/or computers. Fractals are patterns that repeat at increasingly fine scales and are prevalent in natural scenery. Fractal expressionism implies a direct expression of nature's patterns in an art work.
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