Equine Series II
Artist
Jackson Pollock
(American, 1912–1956)
Dateabout 1944
Mediumoil on canvas
Dimensionscanvas: 45.7 x 51.1 cm (18 x 20 1/8 in.)
ClassificationsPaintings
Credit LineAustin S. Garver Fund
Terms
Object number2003.111
Label TextJackson Pollock, a pioneer of post-war abstraction, created Equine Series II at a time when he was trying to reconcile symbol-making as a form of self-knowledge with the possibilities of abstraction as a means of spontaneous expression and reaching deeper layers of his psyche. The barely discernable image of a horse, related to the iconography of Picasso, is deliberately cryptic as a result of Pollock’s pictorial distortions and painterly attacks; it embodies an anxiety and conflict that characterized the man and the era. Pollock sought a visual language that was both personal and relevant to his time: “It seems to me that the modern painter cannot express this age—the airplane, the atom bomb, the radio—in old forms of the Renaissance, or of any other past culture. Each age finds its own technique.” His emphasis on spontaneity and belief that a painting revealed itself to the artist as it was being created helped elevate the act of painting to a level of importance equal to that of the finished picture.ProvenancePollock-Krasner Foundation, IncOn View
On view
