Jackson Pollock, Composition, Jackson Pollock, The Last Sketchbook, Lithograph

Condition: Pre-Owned
Lithograph on vlin Mohawk paper. Inscription: unsigned and unnumbered, as issued. Paper Size: 5 x 12 inches. Excellent condition. Notes: From the album, Jackson Pollock, The Last Sketchbook, 1982. Published by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Publishers, New York, and Johnson Reprint Corporation, New York, under the direction of Eugene Victor Thaw, New York, with the authorization of Lee Krasner, New York; printed by Princeton Polychrome Press, Princeton Junction, New Jersey, under the direction of David Johnson, New York, 1982. Excerpted from the album, Jackson Pollock, The Last Sketchbook, published in 1982 by Johnson Reprint Corporation, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Publishers; printed at Princeton Polychrome Press on acid-free paper made at the Mohawk Paper Mills; Sketchbook and solander box bound by Coman & Southworth Bookbinders. This edition is limited to DXXV examples for the world, of which D are for sale.

References: Excerpted from Box 2, Folder 45: John Bernard Myers, Review of Jackson Pollock: The Last Sketchbook, circa 1983; Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner papers, circa 1914-1984, bulk 1942-1984. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, This facsimile, limited to five hundred copies and instigated by the distinguished art historian and dealer E. V. Thaw, is a contribution to further understanding of an elusive and marvelous painter. It is comforting to know that the original sketch pad will be available to future scholars in the safekeeping of the Morgan Library. ### Excepted from the catalogue entry of the original Jackson Pollock, The Last Sketchbook, at the Morgan Library and Museum and Library with reference to this facsimile edition, A copy of the limited edition facsimile of the sketchbook is stored alongside the original. This sketchbook appears to have been first used by Pollock as a telephone pad, as revealed by the dates, names, casual notes, and doodles on the early pages. The last fourteen pages, however, include a sequence of delicate ink drawings. Although primarily abstract, they include references to the real world -- animal forms, stars, waves, an eye -- that relate them to Pollock's paintings of 1951, in which he moved away from the total abstraction of his classic drip paintings in favor of black and white semi-figurative compositions. The sketchbook is not dated. In their Catalogue Raisonn Francis Valentine O'Connor and Eugene Victor Thaw date it ca. 1950 to 1956. However, in his later survey William S. Lieberman suggests to date it between 1950 and no later than 1953. As the book first served as a notebook before it was turned into a sketchbook, it bears at least one date: May 22, 1950. Another date can be determined from a note about a screening of Hans Namuth and Paul Falkenberg's film, with music by Morton Feldman and narration by Pollock, which was first publicly shown at the Museum of Modern Art on June 14, 1951.

JACKSON POLLOCK (19121956) was an American painter. A major figure in the abstract expressionist movement, Pollock was widely noticed for his "drip technique" of pouring or splashing liquid household paint onto a horizontal surface, enabling him to view and paint his canvases from all angles. It was called all-over painting and action painting, since he covered the entire canvas and used the force of his whole body to paint, often in a frenetic dancing style. This extreme form of abstraction divided critics: some praised the immediacy of the creation, while others derided the random effects. A reclusive and volatile personality, Pollock struggled with alcoholism for most of his life. In 1945, he married the artist Lee Krasner, who became an important influence on his career and on his legacy. Pollock died at age 44 in an alcohol-related single-car collision when he was driving. In December 1956, four months after his death, Pollock was given a memorial retrospective exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City. A larger, more comprehensive exhibition of his work was held there in 1967. In 1998 and 1999, his work was honored with large-scale retrospective exhibitions at MoMA and the Tate Gallery in London. In February 2016, Bloomberg News reported that Kenneth C. Griffin had purchased Jackson Pollock's 1948 painting Number 17A for US$200 million, from David Geffen.
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