Jackson Pollock (33 page)

In many ways it was an impossibly awkward relationship—the painfully shy painter and
his compulsively social patron. Pollock tended to be “very silent” on the occasions
when Ossorio visited his studio, neither agreeing nor disagreeing as the collector
walked around the barn and commented, for instance, that his paintings represented
“the merging of two cultures—Eastern contemplation and Western action.” It was not
unusual for Ossorio to bring gifts on his visits to Fireplace Road, and he gave Pollock
lavish monographs on Goya, Van Gogh, and others. While Lee once complained to Ossorio
that he was taking up too much of her husband’s time, Pollock tolerated the collector
good-naturedly; he was appreciative of the person who bought his paintings and worshiped
his genius while asking nothing in return. One day Ossorio mustered the courage to
show Pollock one of his own paintings. Pollock looked at it for a long time without
saying anything. Then he pointed to a form in a corner that resembled a melting ice-cream
cone. “This painting of yours,” he said, “it’s all about this.” The collector was
delighted by Pollock’s comment and repeated it for years afterward to all his friends.

So great was Ossorio’s devotion and so copious his means that he offered Pollock and
Lee a free place to stay in New York
City. He owned a remodeled carriage house at 9 MacDougal Alley in the Village and
suggested to Lee one day that she and Pollock use it on their next trip to the city.
On Thanksgiving Pollock and Lee left Springs for an extended stay in Ossorio’s carriage
house. Their departure was announced in
The East Hampton Star
, which, after ignoring Pollock for years, suddenly took note of the celebrity in
its backyard (although it failed to note the correct spelling of his name). “Mr. and
Mrs. Jackson Pollack,” the newspaper reported, “are spending three weeks in New York
while Mr. Pollack is holding a one man exhibition of his paintings. Mr. Pollack, one
of the popular modern artists, has made his home at Springs for the past few years.”

Pollock’s third show at the Parsons Gallery (November 21-December 10, 1949)—his first
since the spread in
Life
—opened to wide acclaim. The exhibit, consisting of thirty-four “drip” paintings,
was reviewed favorably in
The New Yorker, The New York Times
, and the art journals. While Carlyle Burrows, of the New York
Herald Tribune
, the lone dissenter, griped that the paintings looked “more than ever repetitious,”
the insult carried none of the vitriol of insults past. No longer did critics liken
Pollock’s art to “baked macaroni” or “tangled hair.” The snide tone of earlier criticism
had been replaced by one of respect. “Late Work by Kandinsky, Pollock and Others,”
read the headline on the Sunday arts page in
The New York Times
, reflecting Pollock’s new stature as a painter who deserved to be taken as seriously
as Kandinsky. The sales figures were appropriately impressive, with the purchasers
ranging from friends on Long Island like Valentine Macy and Harold Rosenberg to such
professional investors as Mrs. John D. Rockefeller III. The show, according to Pollock’s
mother, was “the best show he has ever had and sold well eighteen paintings and prospects
of others they both are fine he is still on the wagon.”

The three weeks he had planned to spend in New York City stretched into three months,
with Lee insisting there was no point returning to the farmhouse in Springs in the
dead of winter. They might as well stay in New York, she reasoned, and take advantage
of the free apartment at 9 MacDougal Alley, or “Nine
Mac,” as Pollock called it. Besides, staying in the city would allow them to attend
the many dinner parties to which they were invited, the many receptions at galleries
and museums: the reception at the Whitney, on Eighth Street, where, six days after
his Parsons show closed, his
Number 14, 1949
went on exhibit; the reception at the Museum of Modern Art, where, the month after
the Whitney show came down, his
Number 1, 1948
went up. He attended many parties, his sobriety adding a new layer of absurdity to
already absurd events. Among them, as Lee wrote to Ossorio, was “an insane dinner
party given by a Mr. & Mrs. Lockwood, whom we didn’t know, and who weren’t there.”
One night, after returning home from yet another dinner party, Lee realized that a
woman who Pollock thought was Mrs. Herbert Ferber was not Ferber’s wife at all but
the wife of a cartoonist. So that Pollock would know whom he had met, “I wrote out
a list of the names of the people we had dinner with.”

To the outside world he had become, in the words of
Life
, the “shining new phenomenon of American art.” To fellow artists, however, Pollock’s
exalted status carried no more credence than his earlier rank, bestowed by Greenberg,
as “the strongest painter of his generation.” While no one doubted Pollock’s seriousness,
artists resented the claims about his superiority. At the same time they wondered,
if not Pollock, who was the best? Many thought it was Willem de Kooning, the Rotterdam-born
painter who had arrived in New York as a stowaway in 1926. After painting houses in
Hoboken and making displays for A. S. Beck Shoe Stores, de Kooning had gained an underground
reputation in the thirties as a master of the human figure. Although he had not had
his first one-man show until 1948, at the age of forty-four, his refusal to exhibit
before he felt ready (and de Kooning never felt ready) only heightened the respect
he commanded among artists. Unlike Pollock, who tended to alienate painters with his
surliness, de Kooning had a large, loyal following. The most conspicuous of his admirers
was the abstract painter Milton Resnick, who, like de Kooning, wore a wool sailor’s
cap and could often be overheard saying “Terrific, terrific” in the broken Dutch accent
of his mentor.

One day de Kooning and Resnick were wandering along Fifty-seventh Street when they
ran into Pollock. His show had opened a few days earlier and he was interested in
hearing what his colleagues felt—at least he thought he was. Pollock asked the two
painters whether they had seen his show; they said they had. “What did you think?”
he asked quietly. De Kooning said nothing. Resnick said he had a question about one
painting in particular called
Out of the Web
. Pollock had cut large amoeboid shapes “out of the web” of dripped pigment, exposing
the brown Masonite board on which the canvas was glued. Resnick told Pollock he didn’t
get it—what were those pieces of Masonite doing in the middle of a “drip” painting?
Pollock thought for a few seconds before blurting out his answer: “Big form,” he said.
As his colleagues looked at him uncomprehendingly his face turned red. “Big form,”
he said again. Resnick said he understood. “You mean big like Picasso big?” “Yeah,”
Pollock said, nodding his head as the two painters laughed at him.

Ever since the article in
Life
, his circle of acquaintances had been expanding steadily. Yet he found himself more
alienated than ever from his fellow painters. De Kooning once said, “Pollock broke
the ice.” While the comment has been taken (and quoted on dozens of occasions) as
a tribute to the revolutionary nature of Pollock’s art—as if he had made it possible
for a whole generation of painters including de Kooning to advance in their art—the
comment was actually a reflection, and not necessarily a flattering one, on Pollock’s
popular appeal. What de Kooning was saying was that Pollock was the first of his generation
to interest the general public in abstract American painting; he broke through the
ice of mass indifference. But never did de Kooning openly acknowledge an artistic
debt to Pollock. The two men were not so much colleagues as competitors, each representing
entirely different values. De Kooning, who came from the country that produced Vermeer
and Rembrandt, prided himself on his links to tradition as surely as Pollock was pleased
by the notion of his Cody boyhood and the challenge to tradition it represented. De
Kooning’s acknowledged status as the more learned and intellectual of the two painters
did not offend Pollock; to the contrary, he turned it into a weakness. He often accused
de Kooning of being a “French painter,” referring to his reverence for Cubist tradition.
Another of Pollock’s favorite jabs at de Kooning was, “You know more, but I feel more.”

12. In the summer of 1944 Pollock visited Provincetown with Lee Krasner. They married
the following year. (Courtesy Nene Schardt)

13. Peggy Guggenheim, who ran the gallery Art of This Century, gave Pollock his first
one-man show. (Photograph by Gisele Freund, courtesy The Peggy Guggenheim Collection)

14. Betty Parsons, an artist herself, became Pollock’s art dealer in the late forties.
(Photo by Alexander Liberman)

15. Pollock was friendly with several of the artists who showed at the Parsons Gallery,
particularly Barnett Newman (left) and Tony Smith. (Photo by Hans Namuth)

16. Clement Greenberg, the art critic, was Pollock’s most ardent champion. He had
a weekly column in
The Nation
and wrote longer pieces for
Partisan Review
. (Courtesy Sue Mitchell)