Jackson Pollock Painting

Creative portraits of artists form a cornerstone of the Morgan's photography collection. In July 1950, a year after Life magazine asked whether Jackson Pollock was "the greatest living painter in the United States," the artist met photographer Hans Namuth at an East Hampton gallery opening. Namuth asked whether he could photograph Pollock at work, and by October he had made over five hundred photographs of the artist in his studio. Jackson Pollock Painting depicts him at work on Autumn Rhythm (Number 30) while Number 32 hangs on the wall behind. The overhead point of view draws attention to Pollock's kinesthetic approach to painting his mammoth canvases, also from above. Namuth's photographs not only sealed Pollock's public image as the embodiment of existentialism in the visual arts, but established Namuth's reputation as a lucid chronicler of creative personalities.