Jackson Pollock
Jackson Pollock (American, 1912–1956) was at the leading edge of the Abstract Expressionism movement in America. After gleaning what appealed to him from the Regionalists, Mexican muralists, and Surrealists, Pollock worked for the Federal Art Project from 1938 to 1942. By the mid–1940s he was painting in a wholly abstract manner and arrived at the drip and splash, “action-painting” style with which he is most often associated. A master of improvisation, he placed great import on being able to walk around such paintings and work on them from all four sides, sometimes augmenting with sand, broken glass, or other foreign matter. Pollock was enormously influential as an artist, and his work revolutionized contemporary art.