Number 1, 1949, 1949
- Medium
- Enamel and metallic paint on canvas
- Dimensions
- Frame (wood): 63 5/8 x 103 x 1 13/16 in. (161.61 x 261.62 x 4.6 cm) 63 x 102 1/2 x 2 1/8 in. (160.02 x 260.35 x 5.4 cm) Image: 63 x 102 1/2 in. (160.02 x 260.35 cm)
- Accession Number
- 89.23
- Credit
The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
The Rita and Taft Schreiber Collection
Given in loving memory of her husband, Taft Schreiber, by Rita Schreiber
Jackson Pollock made Number 1, 1949 by pouring paint from
cans and splattering it from the tips of sticks over an unstretched canvas
lying on his studio floor. Because of this orientation, Pollock was physically withinthe field of the canvas as he spontaneously,
rhythmically applied paint. Some critics of the time considered such painting an
“arena for action. ”Number 1, 1949 and other drip paintings made Pollock the poster boy of abstract expressionism,
and the paintings’ dramatic breaks with tradition garnered him international
attention. His novel techniques of dispensing with easel, palette, and brush; substituting
house and industrial paints for high-quality oils; working on the horizontal
plane of the floor; and dispersing the focal point all over the composition to ceaselessly
lead the viewer’s eye through webs of color were immediately recognized as inaugurating
a new type of abstraction.
