Jackson Pollock Quotes (33 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

Jackson Pollock: 33 quotes 22 likes

Famous Jackson Pollock Quotes

Jackson Pollock

“When I am in my painting, I am not aware of what I'm doing. It is only after a short of 'get acquainted' period that I see what I have been about. I have no fears about making changes, destroying the image, etc., because the painting has a life of its own. I try to let it come through. It is only when I lose contact with the painting that the result is a mess. Otherwise there is pure harmony, an easy give and take, and the painting comes out well.”

Jackson Pollock

In 'Possibilities', Vol. 1, no 1, winter 1947-48, p. 79; as quoted in Jackson Pollock (1983) by Elizabeth Frank, p. 68
1940's

“I don't care for 'Abstract expressionism'.... and it is certainly not 'non-objective', and not 'non-representational' either. I'm very representational some of the time, and a little all of the time. But when you're painting out of your consciousness, figures are bound to emerge. We're all of us influenced by Freud, I guess. I've been a Jungian for a long time... Painting is a state of being... Painting is self-discovery. Every good artist paints what he is.”

Jackson Pollock

In an interview (1956); published in Conversations with Artists, by Seldon Rodman, New York, Capricorn Books, 1961, pp. 84-85
1950's

“every good artist paints what he is”

Jackson Pollock

“The modern artist is living in a mechanical age and we have a mechanical means of representing objects in nature such as the camera and photograph. The modern artist, it seems to me, is working and expressing an inner world – in other words – expressing the energy, the motion and the other inner forces.... the modern artist is working with space and time, and expressing his feelings rather than illustrating.”

Jackson Pollock

Source: 1950's, Interview by William Wright, Summer 1950, pp. 139-140

Jackson Pollock Quotes about painting

“I believe easel painting to be a dying form, and the tendency of modern feeling is toward the wall picture or mural..”

Jackson Pollock

In his application for a grant given by the Guggenheim Foundation 1944; as quoted in Abstract expressionism, Barbara Hess, Taschen Köln, 2006, p. 9
1940's

“The important thing is that Clyff Still – you know his work? – and Rothko, and I – we've changed the nature of painting… I don't mean there aren't any other good painters. Bill [ Willem the Kooning ] is a good painter, but he's a 'French' painter [Pollock meant: a French-abstract style]. I told him so, the last time I saw him after his last show,… all those pictures in his last show start with an image. You can see it even though he's covered it up, or tried to…. Style – that's the French part of it. He has to cover it up with style.. [answering Seldon Rodman's question]”

Jackson Pollock

In an interview (1956); published in Conversations with Artists, by Seldon Rodman, New York, Capricorn Books, 1961, pp. 84-85
1950's

“It came into existence because I had to paint it. Any attempt on my part to say something about it, to attempt explanation of the inexplicable, could only destroy it.”

Jackson Pollock

1947, on his painting 'She wolf'
As quoted in Abstract Expressionism, David Anfam, Thames and Hudson Ltd London, 1990, p. 87
1940's

“I don't work from drawings and colour sketches into a final painting. Painting, I think, today – the more immediate, the more direct – the greater the possibilities of making a direct – of making a statement.”

Jackson Pollock

Source: 1950's, Interview by William Wright, Summer 1950, p. 144

“Well, method is, it seems to me, a natural growth out of a need, and from a need the modern artist has found new ways of expressing the world about him. I happen to find ways that are different from the usual techniques, which seems a little strange at the moment, but I don't think there's anything very different about it. I paint on the floor and this isn't unusual – the Orientals did that.”

Jackson Pollock

Source: 1950's, Interview by William Wright, Summer 1950, pp. 142-143

“Most of the paint I use is a liquid, flowing kind of paint. The brushes I use are more a sticks rather than brushes – the brush doesn't touch the surface on the canvas, it's just above.... [so] I am able to be more free and to have greater freedom and move about the canvas, with greater ease.”

Jackson Pollock

Source: 1950's, Interview by William Wright, Summer 1950, p. 144

Jackson Pollock Quotes about nature

“Naturally, the result is the thing [in painting] and it doesnvery vibrantt make much difference how the paint is put on as long as something has been said. Technique is just a means of arriving at a statement.”

Jackson Pollock

Source: 1950's, Interview by William Wright, Summer 1950, p. 145

“I am nature.”

Jackson Pollock

Attributed by Lee Krasner (1964) in " Oral history interview with Lee Krasner, 1964 Nov. 2-1968 Apr. 11 http://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/oralhistories/transcripts/krasne64.htm", interview with Dorothy Seckler for the Smithsonian Institution Archives of American Art.
In Krasner's words: 'When I brought Hofmann up to meet Pollock and see his work which was before we moved here, Hofmann's reaction was — one of the questions he asked Jackson was, do you work from nature? There were no still lifes around or models around and Jackson's answer was, 'I am nature.' And Hofmann's reply was, 'Ah, but if you work by heart, you will repeat yourself.' To which Jackson did not reply at all.'
in posthumous publications

“The idea of an isolated American painting, so popular in this country during the thirties, seems absurd to me, just as the idea of a purely American mathematics or physics would seem absurd... And in another sense, the problem doesn't exist at all; or, if it did, would solve itself: An American is an American and his painting would naturally be qualified by the fact, whether he wills or not. But the basic problems of contemporary painting are independent of any one country.”

Jackson Pollock

As quoted in Abstract Expressionism: Creators and Critics, ed. Clifford Ross, Abrahams Publishers, New York, 1990, p. 138
1940's, Art and Architecture (1944)

“My concern is with the rhythms of nature... I work inside out, like nature.”

Jackson Pollock

Quoted in Leonhard Emmerling (2003) Jackson Pollock: 1912-1956 Taschen, p. 48
in posthumous publications

Jackson Pollock Quotes

“Technic is the result of a need new needs demand new technics total control denial of the accident States of order organic intensity energy and motion made visible memories arrested in space, human needs and motives acceptance”

Jackson Pollock

Quote around 1948-'49; as cited in Abstract Expressionism (1990), David Anfam, p. 121
Pollock wrote this text on the back of a photo of himself taken in his own studio.
1940's

Motivation , Memory

“Each age finds its own technique... I mean, the strangeness will wear off and I think we will discover the deeper meanings in modern art.”

Jackson Pollock

As quoted in Francis V. O'Connor (1967) Jackson Pollock, p. 79
in posthumous publications

Age , Art , Thinking

“I have a definite feeling for the West, the vast horizontality of the land, for instance... I have always been very impressed with the plastic qualities of American Indian art. The Indians have the true painter's approach in their capacity to get hold of appropriate images, and in their understanding of what constitutes painterly subject-matter. Their colour is essentially Western, their vision has the basic universality of all real art. Some people find references to American Indian art and calligraphy in parts of my pictures. That wasn't intentional; probably [it] was the result of early memories and enthusiasm.”

Jackson Pollock

Quote of Pollock, from Twentieth-century American painting, Gail Levin, The Thyssen-Bornemisza collection. London, 1987, p. 267
1940's, Art and Architecture (1944)

People , Art , Feeling , Understanding

“As to what I would like to be. It is difficult to say. An Artist of some kind. If nothing else I shall always study the Arts. People have always frightened and bored me, consequently I have been within my own shell and have not accomplished anything materially.”

Jackson Pollock

Quote in Pollock's letter, Los Angeles 22 October, 1929 to Charles and Frank in New York; published in: Jackson Pollock (2011) American Letters: 1927-1947. p. 16
1925 - 1940

People , Art , Study

“I've had a period of drawing on canvas in black – with some of my early images coming thru -, think the non-objectivists will find them disturbing – and the kids who think it simple to splash a 'Pollock' out.”

Jackson Pollock

Quote from Pollock's letter to Alfonso A. Ossorio and Edward Dragon (1951); as quoted in Abstract Expressionism (1990) by David Anfam, p. 175
1950's

Thinking , Drawing

“I accept the fact that the important painting of the last hundred years was done in France. American painters have generally missed the point of modern painting from beginning to end... Thus the fact that good European moderns [European artists who lived in the U. S. because of the Nazi-regime] are now here is very important, for they bring with them an understanding of the problems of modern painting. I am particularly impressed with their concept of the source of art being the unconscious. These idea interests me more than these specific artists do, for the two artists I admire most, Picasso and Joan Miró, are still abroad.”

Jackson Pollock

As quoted in Abstract Expressionism: Creators and Critics, ed. Clifford Ross, Abrahams Publishers, New York, 1990, p. 138
1940's, Art and Architecture (1944)

Art , Idea , Understanding , Problem

“Modern art to me is nothing more than the expression of contemporary aims of the age we're living in... All cultures have had means and techniques of expressing their immediate aims – the Chinese, the Renaissance, all cultures. The thing that interests me is that today painters do not have to go to a subject matter outside of themselves. Most modern painters work from a different source, they work from within.”

Jackson Pollock

Source: 1950's, Interview by William Wright, Summer 1950, p. 140

Age , Art

“I can control the flow of paint; there is no accident..”

Jackson Pollock

1940's
Source: Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner, Ines Janet Engelmann, Prestel Verlag Munich, 2007, p. 54

Painting

“Abstract painting is abstract. It confronts you. There was a reviewer a while back who wrote that my pictures didn't have any beginning or any end. He didn't meant it as a compliment, but it was. It was a fine compliment. Only he didn't know it.”

Jackson Pollock

In 'Unframed Space' interview with Berton Roueché, The New Yorker (5 August 1950); as quoted in The Grove Book of Art Writing: Brilliant Words on Art from Pliny the Elder to Damien Hirst ed. Martin Gayford and Karen Wright [Grove Press, 2000, ISBN 0-802-13720-2], p. 546
1950's

Painting

“My painting does not come from the easel. I hardly ever stretch my canvas before painting. I prefer to tack the unstretched canvas to the hard wall or the floor. I need the resistance of a hard surface. On the floor 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. This is akin to the method of the Indian sand painters of the West.”

Jackson Pollock

Quote from 'Possibilities' Vol. 1, no 1, winter 1947-48, p. 79; as cited in 'Jackson Pollock: is he the greatest living painter in the United States?', in 'Life' (8 August 1949), pp. 42-45
1940's

Way , Feeling , Parting , Painting

“With experience it seems to be possible to control the flow of paint, to a great extent, and I don't use – I don't use the accident – 'cause I deny the accident.... it's quite different from working, say, from a still life where you set up objects and work directly from them. I do have a general notion of what I'm about and what the results will be. I approach painting in the same sense as one approaches drawing, that is, it's direct.”

Jackson Pollock

Source: 1950's, Interview by William Wright, Summer 1950, p. 144

Life , Sense , Drawing , Painting

“Well, painting today certainly seems very vibrant, very alive, very exiting. Five or six of my contemporaries around New York are doing very vital work, and the direction that painting seems to be taken here – is – away from the easel – into some sort, some kind of wall, wall painting…”

Jackson Pollock

Source: 1950's, Interview by William Wright, Summer 1950, p. 144

Painting

“My work with Benton was important as something against which to react very strongly, later on; in this, it was better to have worked with him than with a less resistant personality who would have provided a much less strong opposition. At the same time Benton introduced me to Renaissance art.”

Jackson Pollock

remark on his former art-teacher w:Thomas Hart Benton
As quoted in Abstract Expressionism: Creators and Critics, ed. Clifford Ross, Abrahams Publishers, New York 1990, p. 137
1940's, Art and Architecture (1944)

Art , Strong , Teachers , Time

“The thing that interests me is that today painters do not have to go to a subject-matter outside themselves. Modern painters work in a different way. They work from within.”

Jackson Pollock

Quote of Pollock in a radio interview (1951); as quoted in Lives of the Great Twentieth Century Artists', (1986) Edward Lucie-Smith, p. 263
1950's

Way

“I think they [the public] should not look for, but look passively — and try to receive what the painting has to offer and not bring a subject matter or preconceived idea of what they are to be looking for... and I think the unconsciousness drives do mean a lot in looking at paintings... I think it should enjoyed just as music is enjoyed — after a while you may like it or you may not. But it doesn't seem to be too serious. I like some flowers, and others, other flowers I don't like. I think at least it gives — at least give it a chance.”

Jackson Pollock

Source: 1950's, Interview by William Wright, Summer 1950, pp. 139-140

Music , Flowers , Idea , Thinking

“It seems to me that the modern painter cannot express his age, the airplane the atom bomb, the radio, in the old forms of Renaissance or of any past culture. Each age finds its own technique…”

Jackson Pollock

Source: 1950's, Interview by William Wright, Summer 1950, p. 17

Age , Past

“The important thing is that Clyff Still – you know his work?”

Jackson Pollock

and Rothko, and I – we've changed the nature of painting.. .I don't mean there aren't any other good painters. Bill [ Willem the Kooning ] is a good painter, but he's a 'French' painter [Pollock meant: a French-abstract style]. I told him so, the last time I saw him after his last show,. ..all those pictures in his last show start with an image. You can see it even though he's covered it up, or tried to.. ..Style – that's the French part of it. He has to cover it up with style.. [answering Seldon Rodman's question]
In an interview (1956); published in Conversations with Artists, by Seldon Rodman, New York, Capricorn Books, 1961, pp. 84-85
1950's