Jackson Pollock ·Blue Poles

1952 – Enamel and aluminium on canvas – National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Images: © Artists Right Society, New York

Jackson Pollock is the most important figure of American Abstract Expressionism, and “Blue Poles” is his last masterpiece, the culmination of his artistic career.

Labeled “America’s greatest painter” by Life Magazine (1949), Pollock created his best works -his famous drip paintings- between 1947 and 1950. After those fertile years, comparable to Picasso’s Blue Period or Vincent van Gogh’s final months in Auvers, he abandoned the drip, and his latest works are often bold and quite unexciting. “Blue Poles”, however, is a sudden and exciting return to his best period, a powerful drip in which eight great vertical lines (poles) create a strange and dynamic contrast with the undulating lines in the “background”. In this work, as well as other masterpieces like “Summertime” (Tate Gallery), “Lavender Mist” (Washington, National Gallery), “Out of the Web”, “Autumn Rhythm” or “Lucifer”, Pollock is revealed as a dynamic and colossal genius able to canalize the tremendous energy of his psyche and turn it into a gesture.

Text: G. Fernández, theartwolf.com