Jackson Pollock Quotes (1912-1956)

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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, fh) 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 Miró, are still abroad.”

“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 de Kooning ] is a good painter, but he’s a "French" painter. 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.”

“[visiting Pollock's studio]: You do not work from nature. This is no good, you will repeat yourself. You work by heart, not from nature. [Pollock answered: 'I am nature']”

“He [Pollock] just jumps in before he knows how to swim. [his reaction, when Morandi sees paintings of Pollock for the first time in his life, c. 1950]”

“Jackson Pollock's Scent is a heady specimen of what one worshiper calls his "personalized skywriting." More the product of brushwork than of Pollock's famed drip technique, it nevertheless aims to remind the observer of nothing except previous Pollocks, and quite succeeds in that modest design. All it says, in effect, is that Jack the Dripper, 44, still stands on his work.”

“If you're a painter, you are not alone. There's no way to be alone. You think and you care and you're with all the people who care. You think you care and you're with all the people who care, including the young people who don't know they do yet. Tomlin in his late paintings knew this. Jackson always knew it: that if you meant it enough...”

“Pollock ... left us [c. 1958] at the point where we must be preoccupied with and even dazzled by the space and objects of our everyday life, either our bodies, clothes, rooms, or, if need be, the vastness of Forty-Second Street [New York] ... Objects of every sorts are materials for the new art, paints, chairs, food, electric and neon-lights, smoke, water, old socks, a dog, movies, a thousand other things which will be discovered by the present generation of artists ... All will become materials for this new concrete art.”