According to the painter Lee Krasner (1908-1984), a companion of Jackson Pollock (1912-1956), he said one day, around 1942-1943: Damn Picasso! Every time I feel like I’m getting somewhere, I realize that the bastard got there before me. » Now here’s Pollock invited to this. “bastard” and, furthermore, during her early years, until 1947: the period in which Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) was her constant food and torment. Thus, the tour begins with the comparison of works on paper by both that show, through their proximity, the strength of the obsession with Picasso in the young American. The objective of the exhibition is to show how he gradually distances himself from it, until he becomes the painter of dripschoreographies of colored lines placed on the canvas placed on the floor.
About forty of his paintings are collected, which is notable because the difficulty in obtaining the loan of his works is directly proportional to his fame and economic value, both very high, since Pollock has been elevated to the rank of American. hero. Added to this are approximately twice as many drawings and some works for comparison, including an admirable Arshile Gorky from 1936-1937 and a no less interesting Janet Sobel from 1943. The set constitutes a quality exhibition, hung chronologically. We would have done without a large room with black walls, but Pollock’s color is strong enough to withstand it. It stands out today, as it did for those who witnessed Pollock’s escape from the references to which he was held captive.
In his head, his dreams, his fingers.
Picasso was therefore everywhere until around 1943, especially in drawings, inks and pencils. Pollock knows him very early and very well. He saw his works in exhibitions, including the retrospective “Picasso: Forty Years of His Art”, at the MoMA in New York, inaugurated in November 1939, which brought together 364 people and was preceded, in May, by a presentation of Guernica (1937) in a New York gallery. You see them in private collections and in magazines from Paris, art notebooks AND Minotaur. He heard his friend and mentor John Graham (1886-1961) talk about it. Result of this overdose: even when he draws as automatically as possible for the Jungian psychiatrist he goes to in 1939 to try to put an end to his alcoholism and his malaise, he creates Picasso, Guernica. He has it in his head, in his dreams, in his fingers. Snippets of bullfights, body parts, screaming heads, half-beast, half-man monsters, big staring eyes: we would never fail to spot the quotes.
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