Jackson Pollock (44 page)

49
.

“immediate sympathy”: Thomas Hart Benton,
An Artist in America
(Columbia, MO: Univ. of Missouri Press, 1968), p. 332.

49.

“I’m damn grateful”: “Unframed Space,”
The New Yorker
, Aug. 5, 1950, p. 16.

49
.

“scented dudes”: Benton interview,
Art Digest
, Dec. 1, 1930, p. 36.

49
.

“What the hell”: unpublished interview with Paul Cummings, for the Archives of American
Art, July 1973.

49
.

“It is absurd”: quoted in his obituary in
The New York Times
, Jan. 21, 1975, p. 23.

50
.

“were mad . . . prophet”: Benton,
An Artist in America
, p. 248.

51
.

“I improved my brand”: ibid, p. 249.

51
.

“Benton is beginning to be recognized”: letter from JP to his father, Feb. 3, 1933,
Catalogue Raisonné
, Vol. 4, p. 214.

52
.

“give you a quick look”: telephone interview with Reginald Wilson, 1984.

52
.

“hurrying down the corridor”: interview with Will Barnet, 1984.

52
.

“Why couldn’t that nice young man”: interview with Frances Avery, 1984.

52
.

“He couldn’t draw”: interview with Yvonne McKinney, 1984.

52
.

“jittery hands”: interview with Joe Delaney, 1984.

52
.

“seemed . . . minimal order”: Benton,
An Artist in America
, p. 332.

53
.

“He got things out of proportion”: rough draft of a letter from Thomas Hart Benton
to Francis V. O’Connor, 1964 (hereafter cited as “Benton notes”).

53
.

“A good seventy years more”: letter from JP to LeRoy Pollock, n.d.,
Catalogue Raisonné
, Vol. 4, p. 212.

53
.

“I have much to learn”: letter from JP to Stella Pollock, n.d.,
Catalogue Raisonné
, Vol. 4, p. 213.

53
.

Charles tried his hardest: interviews with Charles and Frank Pollock, 1983–84.

54
.

“He was trying to impress”: interview with Marie Leavitt Pollock, 1983.

54
.

“I’ll go get them”: interview with Nathaniel Kaz, 1984.

55
.

“As kids we ate chicken and pork”: Frank Pollock interview.

55
.

Rita sent biscuits and cream: interview with Manuel Tolegian, 1983.

55
.

“a sense of ineptitude”: Benton notes.

55
.

“I had a model there”: unpublished interview with Paul Cummings, July 1973.

56
.

“Pollock volunteered”: interview with Harry Holtzman, Dec. 1983.

58
.

“Run faster”: Tolegian interview.

58
.

“The miners and prostitutes”: letter from JP to Charles and Frank Pollock, n.d.,
Catalogue Raisonné
, Vol. 4, p. 210.

59
.

“I would have been worried sick”: letter from Stella Pollock to Charles and Frank
Pollock, n.d.,
Catalogue Raisonné
, Vol. 4, p. 210.

59
.

“sure hard work”: letter from Stella Pollock to Frank Pollock, n.d.

59
.

“That’s all I had to say”: Tolegian interview.

59
.

“damned little left”: letter from JP to Charles Pollock, n.d.,
Catalogue Raisonné
, Vol. 4, p. 211.

60
.

“That lunchroom was crazy”: interview with Philip Pavia, 1984.

61
.

“What do we need those Europeans for?”: Tolegian interview.

61
.

“Pollock was posing”: interview with Whitney Darrow, Jr., 1984.

61
.

“heard Thomas Craven lecture”:
Catalogue Raisonné
, Vol. 4, p. 213.

61
.

“All Pollock does”: quoted in Polly Burroughs,
Thomas Hart Benton: A Portrait
(Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1981), p. 118.

62
.

“And when I say artist”: letter from JP to his father, n.d.,
Catalogue Raisonné
, Vol. 4, p. 212.

62
.

“What the hell”: Tolegian interview.

62
.

“You wait”: interview with Peter Busa, July 1984.

63
.

“We have a substitute”:
Catalogue Raisonné
, Vol. 4, p. 215.

64
.

“So far”: ibid.

64
.

“I like it better”: letter from JP to his mother, March 25,1933,
Catalogue Raisonné
, Vol. 4, p. 217.

64
.

“Well Dad by god”: letter from JP to his father, Feb. 3, 1933.

64
.

“I am so sorry”: letter from Stella Pollock to JP and others, n.d.,
Catalogue Raisonné
, Vol. 4, p. 216.

65
.

“I always feel”: letter from JP to his mother, March 25, 1933.

66
.

lit with blue bulbs: interview with Frances Avery, 1984.

66
.

“Jackson adored my mother”: telephone interview with Jessie Benton Lyman, 1984.

67
.

“Jack must have told him”: Benton notes; see also Benton,
An Artist in America
(Columbia, MO: Univ. of Missouri Press, 1968), p. 339.

68
.

“My mother talked”: telephone interview with Thomas P. Benton, 1985.

68
.

With the first few sounds: Polly Burroughs,
Thomas Hart Benton: A Portrait
(New York: Doubleday, 1981), p. 119.

68
.

“Jack tried to play”: Benton notes.

69
.

“Clean up”: telephone interview with Elizabeth Pollock, 1984.

70
.

“I am inclined to believe”: Benton notes.

71
.

“Overnight the Helen Marot I had known”:
Sketches from Life: The Autobiography of Lewis Mumford
(New York: Dial Press, 1982), p. 247.

72
.

“I felt so sorry”: letter from Stella Pollock to JP and his brothers, Aug. 30, 1934.

72
.

“34 cents in my pocket”: unpublished interview with Sanford (Sande) McCoy by Kathleen
Shorthall, of
Life
magazine, Nov. 2, 1959.

73
.

“Much as Jackson”: ibid.

73
.

“Jack was a very proud . . . young man”: letter from Rita Benton to Francis V. O’Connor,
1964. Quoted in O’Connor’s unpublished dissertation,
The Genesis of Jackson Pollock: 1912 to 1943
. Submitted to Johns Hopkins in 1965.

74
.

“most beautiful”: ibid.

74
.

“Mrs. T. H. Benton Collection”:
The New York Times
, Dec. 1,1934, p. 11.

75
.

“an enraged Commie”: Benton,
An Artist in America
, p. 171.

75
.

“petty opportunist”:
Art Front
, April 1, 1935.

76
.

“take the Marxist slant”: quoted in
Art Digest
, April 15, 1935, p. 13.

77
.

“He was truly a lost soul”: letter from Manuel Tolegian to Thomas Hart Benton, Aug.
21, 1964.

78
.

“Bums are the well-to-do”: letter from JP to his father, Feb. 3, 1933,
Catalogue Raisonné
, Vol. 4, p. 214.

78
.

“grateful to the WPA”: “Unframed Space,”
The New Yorker
, Aug. 5, 1950, p. 16.

79
.

“plumbers’ wages”: quoted in Francis V. O’Connor,
Federal Art Patronage, 1933 to 1943
(College Park, MD: Univ. of Maryland Art Gallery, 1966), p. 7.

79
.

“Lenin’s head”: ibid., p. 8.

79
.

“poor art for poor people”: quoted in Harold Rosenberg,
The De-definition of Art
(New York: Horizon Press, 1937), p. 35.

80
.

“I paid a severe price”: quoted in Thomas B. Hess,
Barnett Newman
(New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1971), p. 88.

80
.

dressed in pajamas: telephone interview with Jacob Kainen, 1984.

81
.

Twelve of Pollock’s watercolors were destroyed: these are listed in a WPA document
dated March 7, 1941, as follows: #463
White Horse Grazing
, #1322
The Drought
, #4002
The Twister
, #4004
Shore Landscape
, #4753
Sunny Landscape
, #5430
Baytime
, #5431
Martha’s Vineyard
, #9100
Landscape
, #9191
Landscape #4, #9540 Landscape
, #9721
Landscape
, #9903
Landscape
.

81
.

Flushing warehouse: see
Art Digest
, Feb. 15, 1944, p. 7.

82
.

“disaffected”: unpublished interview with Carl Holty by William Agee, for the Archives
of American Art, 1964.

83
.

“The Project can’t use this work”: unpublished interview with Dorothy C. Miller by
Paul Cummings, for the Archives of American Art, 1970.

83
.

“There’s no news here”: letter from JP to Charles Pollock, n.d.,
Catalogue Raisonné
, Vol. 4, p. 221.

83
.

helped out at the Siqueiros workshop: Laurance P. Hurlburt, “The Siqueiros Experimental
Workshop,”
Art Journal
(Spring 1976), pp. 237 et passim.

84
.

he didn’t vote once: The records of the Board of Elections in New York City indicate
that Pollock registered to vote for the first time in October 1944. The 1944 presidential
election was the only election he ever voted in. (The records of the Board of Elections
in
Suffolk County, where Pollock lived in later life, indicate that he never voted in
that county.)

84
.

“He couldn’t draw”: interview with Axel Horn, Nov. 1983.

84
.

“He had no ideas”: interview with Harold Lehman, 1984.

85
.

“private, lonely person”: interview with Reginald Wilson, 1984.

85
.

“Jack had the misfortune”: letter from Sande Pollock to Charles Pollock, Oct. 29,
1936,
Catalogue Raisonné
, Vol. 4, p. 220.

86
.

“He was really in love”: interview with Arloie McCoy, Nov. 1983.

86
.

“walk me home”: interview with Rebecca Tarwater Hicks, May 1984.

87
.

“It’s almost embarrassing”: ibid.

87
.

“I will do what you wish”: letter from JP to Becky Tarwater, n.d.

88
.

“having a very difficult time”: letter from Sande Pollock to Charles Pollock, July
21, 1937,
Catalogue Raisonné
, Vol. 4, p. 222.

89
.

“I found I loved”: letter from JP to Becky Tarwater, n.d.

89
.

“out here for a week or so”: postcard from JP to Charles Pollock, n.d.,
Catalogue Raisonné
, Vol. 4, p. 223.

90
.

“he began escaping”: Benton notes.

91
.

“very gentle young man”: telephone interview with Dr. James Wall, 1984.

91
.

“There was a lot of calming down”: quoted in Jeffrey Potter,
To a Violent Grave: An Oral Biography of Jackson Pollock
(New York: Putnam, 1985), p. 57.

91
.

“strong creative urge”: letter from Dr. Edward Allen to Lee Krasner, Sept. 2, 1963,
Pollock Archive.