Jackson Pollock Quotes on Art

Jackson Pollock was one of the leading abstract expressionist artists of the twentieth century. He is best known for his large scale abstract drip paintings that were created on the ground, horizontally, using his own drip technique. He produced paintings and works on paper. Famous Jackson Pollock paintings include “Troubled Queen”, “Male and Female”, “Alchemy”, “Blue Poles”, and “Number 1: Lavender Mist”.

Mini biography: Born Paul Jackson Pollock on the 28th of January, 1912 in Cody, Wyoming, United States of America. His mother was Stella May (McClure) and his father was LeRoy Pollock. Pollock married the abstract expressionist artist Lee Krasner. Jackson Pollock died in a car accident on the 11th of August, 1956 in Springs, New York, U.S.A. Pollock was 44 years old when he passed away.

Jackson Pollock Art Quotes

It’s all a big game of construction, some with a brush, some with a shovel, some choose a pen. Jackson Pollock

I can control the flow of paint; there is no accident. Jackson Pollock

The method of painting is the natural growth out of a need. I want to express my feelings rather than illustrate them. Jackson Pollock

My painting does not come from the easel. I prefer to tack the unstretched canvas to the hard wall or the floor. I need the resistance of a hard surface. On the floor I am more at ease. I feel nearer, more part of the painting, since this way I can walk around it, work from the four sides and literally be in the painting. Jackson Pollock

Every good painter paints what he is. Jackson Pollock

The modern artist is working with space and time and expressing his feelings rather than illustrating. Jackson Pollock

Abstract painting is abstract. It confronts you. There was a reviewer a while back who wrote that my pictures didn’t have any beginning or any end. He didn’t meant it as a compliment, but it was. It was a fine compliment. Only he didn’t know it. Jackson Pollock

When I’m painting, I’m not aware of what I’m doing. It’s only after a get acquainted period that I see what I’ve been about. Jackson Pollock

I believe easel painting to be a dying form, and the tendency of modern feeling is toward the wall picture or mural. Jackson Pollock

I accept the fact that the important painting of the last hundred years was done in France. American painters have generally missed the point of modern painting from beginning to end. Jackson Pollock

I continue to get further away from the usual painter’s tools such as easel, palette, brushes, etc. I prefer sticks, trowels, knives and dripping fluid paint or a heavy impasto with sand, broken glass or other foreign matter added. Jackson Pollock

The painting has a life of its own.Jackson Pollock

It doesn’t matter how the paint is put on, as long as something is said. Jackson Pollock

On the floor I am more at ease. I feel nearer, more a part of the painting, since this way I can walk around it, work from the four sides and literally be in the painting. Jackson Pollock

An American is an American and his painting would naturally be qualified by the fact, whether he wills or not. But the basic problems of contemporary painting are independent of any one country. Jackson Pollock

When I am in my painting, I’m not aware of what I’m doing. It is only after a sort of ‘get acquainted’ period that I see what I have been about. I have no fear of making changes, destroying the image, etc., because the painting has a life of its own. I try to let it come through. It is only when I lose contact with the painting that the result is a mess. Otherwise there is pure harmony, an easy give and take, and the painting comes out well. Jackson Pollock

It came into existence because I had to paint it. Any attempt on my part to say something about it, to attempt explanation of the inexplicable, could only destroy it. Jackson Pollock

The thing that interests me is that today painters do not have to go to a subject-matter outside themselves. Modern painters work in a different way. They work from within. Jackson Pollock

The modern artist is living in a mechanical age and we have a mechanical means of representing objects in nature such as the camera and photograph. The modern artist, it seems to me, is working and expressing an inner world – in other words – expressing the energy, the motion and the other inner forces.. the modern artist is working with space and time, and expressing his feelings rather than illustrating. Jackson Pollock

I have a definite feeling for the West, the vast horizontality of the land, for instance. I have always been very impressed with the plastic qualities of American Indian art. The Indians have the true painter’s approach in their capacity to get hold of appropriate images, and in their understanding of what constitutes painterly subject-matter. Their color is essentially Western, their vision has the basic universality of all real art. Jackson Pollock

Art Quotes About Jackson Pollock

I don’t think of my work as calligraphic. Critics also describe Jackson and De Kooning as calligraphic painters but calligraphy has nothing to do with us. It’s interesting that the Oriental critics never say this. The Oriental idea of space is an infinite space; it is not painted space, and ours is. Franz Kline Quotes

With Jackson there was quiet solitude. Just to sit and look at the landscape. An inner quietness. After dinner, to sit on the back porch and look at the light. No need for talking. For any kind of communication. Lee Krasner Quotes

More on American Artist Jackson Pollock

How has Jackson Pollock influenced your art making? Is he one of your favorite abstract expressionist artists? Let us know what you think about Pollack in the comments below.

For more on the famous American painter here’s three excellent Jackson Pollock books: “Jackson Pollock“, “Pollock’s Modernism“, and “Jackson Pollock: A Biography“.

Related or similar popular artists and celebrities include: Robert Motherwell, Barnett Newman, Lee Krasner, Robert Ryman, and other Famous American Artists.