Viewing page 4 of 7

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

STATEMENTS BY JACKSON POLLOCK

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. . . .

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. (The only American master who interests me is Ryder.) Thus the fact that good European moderns 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 concepts of the source of art being the Unconscious.  This idea interests me more than these specific painters do, for the two artists I admire most, Picasso and Miro, are still abroad. . . .

The idea of an isolated American painting, so popular in this country during the thirties, seems absurd to me just as the idea of creating 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 and his painting would naturally be qualified by that fact, whether he wills it or not.  But the basic problems of contemporary paintings are independent of any country.

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 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 round 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.

I continue to get further away from the usual painter's tools such as easel, palette, brushes, etc.  I prefer sticks, trowels, knives and dripping fluid paint or a heavy impasto with sand, broken glass and other foreign matter added.