Untitled by Jackson Pollock

Jackson Pollock

1951

Black and colored ink on mulberry paper

Seattle Art Museum

In 1948, Pollock showed his first drip paintings at Sidney Janis Gallery in New York, which caused a stir among the city’s vanguard artists and critics. His method of dripping paint, rather than painting with a brush, introduced movement and eliminated the issue of pictorial depth and perspective that had been a point of discussion since the early 20th century. Drawing was an integral part of Pollock’s practice: “I approach painting in the same sense as one approaches drawing, that is, it’s direct.” Informed by the Surrealists’ interest in chance and the unconscious, this drawing plays with memory in the form of a material trace and