We posted about the Abstract Expressionist print auction last week at Swann Auction House in New York and today we learn that Jackson Pollock’s “Untitled” (c.1944-45), set a print record for the artist.
Jackson Pollock
Tomorrow, Swann auction house will be presenting a sale, “Atelier 17, Abstract Expressionism & the New York School,” which showcases the prints of the Abstract Expressionist era that are often overlooked because the larger, flashier paintings inevitably grab the spotlight. The sale has a particular emphasis on the co-operative printmaking workshop Atelier 17, which was started in the Paris studio of English painter and draughtsman Stanley William Hayter in 1927. When World War II began, Hayter fled Paris for London and eventually settled in New York after a very short stay in California during the 1940s. The first New York incarnation of Atelier 17 popped up at the New School of Social Research but eventually the studio found a home at 41 East 8th Street in the heart of artistic Greenwich Village. Jackson Pollock lived across the street.
Dik F. Liu is a Williamsburg-based artist who has compiled a fascinating list on his Facebook profile page of what he has termed the “Not as Famous – Lesser known relatives of well-known artists.” He has allowed us to publish a number of the gems he’s found. Love triangles, same-sex spouses, illegitimate children, there’s a lot of juicy stuff here.
Peggy Guggenheim’s gift to Iowa has been saved (for now), according to the Daily Iowan … On Monday, Rep. Scott Raecker, R-Urbandale, the head of the Iowa House Appropriations Committee, withdrew the controversial proposal, which would have forced the University of Iowa Museum of Art to sell the $140 million painting “Mural,” by Jackson Pollock …
The idea has once again arisen to sell University of Iowa’s Jackson Pollock masterpiece “Mural” (1943), only this time it’s not to pay for flood damage to the University’s museum. Representative Scott Raecker of the Iowa House of Representatives has introduced a bill to force the sale of the artwork to pay for student scholarships.
To all those haters who claim they just don’t get Jackson Pollock, or that the painter’s Abstract Expressionist canvases have started to look stale: here’s something to get your attention. A slow-motion video of flung paint shows the real drama behind Pollock’s paintings.
Abstract Expressionist New York shines a bright and bold light on Jackson Pollock. Although the selection on view is obviously not as extensive as MoMA’s major retrospective in 1998-99, the show is still a rare and precious opportunity to see many of Pollock’s paintings under one roof.
His paintings are often crudely divided into two categories. On the hand, there are the mighty drip paintings — where splatters and splotches of paint dance across the picture plane. Then, there is everything else.
You know how everyone’s claiming to be an artist these days? Make-up technicians, hairdressers, gallerists, your kid sister, that crazy aunt who does crocheted landscapes? Yeah? Well now even plants are getting in on the game. British artist Tim Knowles attaches pens to the tips of tree branches and sets up an easel just within reach of the waving “paintbrushes.” As the tree branches sway and get blown around, the pens trace out black arcs and dots on the papered easels. There’s a minimalist poetry to the works themselves that’s pretty cool.
The impressive performance of Ed Harris in Pollock is the first thing that pops into my head when I think about the intersection of fine art and film. However, there are many more examples of Hollywood getting all creative and artsy … And so I say to Hollywood: Enough. Let’s branch out, diversify, and push our art flicks into some exciting new genres …
In the newly released edition of the Brooklyn Rail, editor John Yau takes on New York Magazine’s art critic Jerry Saltz and his characterization of America as “big, bright, shiny, colorful, crowd-pleasing, heat-seeking, impeccably produced, polished, popular, expensive, and extroverted—while also being abrasive, creepily sexualized, fussy, twisted, and, let’s face it, ditzy.” Yau asks, “Is this ‘our America?’ Or is this Jerry Saltz shilling for Jeff Koons?”
