| 1 | 1 | | Jackson Pollock is probably the most famous, and certainly the most notorious, of |
| 2 | | that group of artists that came of age in the 1940's and 50's in New York, known as |
| 3 | | Abstract Expressionists. Many observers credit him with freeing American art from its |
| 4 | | tutelage to the European tradition and place him among the greatest painters of the 20th |
| 5 | | century, in the exalted company of Cézanne, Matisse and Picasso. But whatever one's |
| 6 | | judgment of Pollock's artistic stature, it is undeniable that he was instrumental in shifting |
| 7 | | the center of esthetic gravity in the art world from Paris to New York. Perhaps more than |
| 8 | | any of his colleagues, he epitomizes the Abstract Expressionists' celebration of |
| 9 | | unmediated impulse and feeling. In the vibrant canvases of his mature work, paint is |
| 10 | | dripped and poured and splattered in exuberant yet highly controlled bursts of lyrical |
| 11 | | abstraction. |
| 2 | 12 | | Pollock was a tortured man, a desperate alcoholic whose life oscillated between |
| 13 | | painful, inarticulate shyness when he was sober and frighteningly aggressive, often |
| 14 | | violent outbursts when he was drunk. Even among the rough-and-tumble crow d of artists |
| 15 | | who frequented the Cedar Tavern in Greenwich Village, his behavior was extreme, with |
| 16 | | evenings often ending in fights and encounters with the police. The painter Robert |
| 17 | | Motherwell suggests that for Pollock 'the alcoholism was essential: ft let him pull out all |
| 18 | | the stops ... Without the alcohol there might not be the work.' Perhaps this is true. But it |
| 19 | | is worth noting that most of Pollock's best work was done during his two years of |
| 20 | | sobriety from 1948 to 1950. He continued painting in the early 50's but by the end of |
| 21 | | 1954 he had virtually stopped working. He was 44 years old when he died in a car |
| 22 | | accident. |
| 3 | 23 | | Pollock spectacularly embodied the Romantic image of the doomed artist teetering |
| 24 | | on the edge of madness, struggling to give artistic form to the feelings that overwhelm |
| 25 | | him . Such a life naturally provides an attractive subject for the biographer, and Jeffrey |
| 26 | | Potter has been diligent about exploiting his material. To a Violent Grave, his oral |
| 27 | | biography of Jackson Pollock, has 12 chapters, which take us from Pollock's birth to his |
| 28 | | death. Within each chapter Mr Potter has more or less thematically arranged bits of |
| 29 | | interviews with the painter's friends and relatives, his neighbors and his associates in the |
| 30 | | art world. Himself Pollock's neighbor in East Hampton for seven years, Mr Potter |
| 31 | | intersperses his text with commentaries designed to acquaint us with the pertinent facts |
| 32 | | about and the actors in Pollock's life. The result hardly constitutes a biographical |
| 33 | | narrative, but the patient reader will be able to discern the basic shape of Pollock's life. |
| 34 | | Mr Potter's book is less a biography than an exercise in gossip, an excuse for people to |
| 35 | | talk about themselves and settle old scores under the guise of reminiscing about the |
| 36 | | celebrated figure they have known. |
| 4 | 37 | | One of the characteristic features of such oral biography is an abundance of |
| 38 | | irrelevant trivia. No doubt it is meant to supply the book with a feeling of immediacy an d |
| 39 | | local color. Mr Potter does not shrink from attempting to do that, and his book is full of |
| 40 | | pointless detail. 'What stays with me is that baked Virginia ham,' one man recalls about |
| 41 | | Pollock's funeral. ' 1 never tasted such ham, never.' |
| 5 | 42 | | An even less attractive feature of oral biography is its tendency towards |
| 43 | | unrestrained resentfulness; since the 'author' is simply quoting his interviewees, he need |
| 44 | | take no responsibility for their statements, no matter how outrageous. |
| 6 | 45 | | 'Jackson Pollock and 1 shared some personality equivalents,' Mr Potter informs us |
| 46 | | at the beginning of his book. 'We saw ourselves as outsiders.' He tells us he was planning |
| 47 | | a novel with Pollock as the hero to be called 'The Outsider'. Insofar as the world of art is |
| 48 | | concerned, Mr Potter has certainly shown himself to be an outsider. And while it is hard |
| 49 | | to say what he would have contrived in a novel about Pollock, judging from the present |
| 50 | | production we should be thankful for small favors. |
| | | |
| | | Roger Kimball in the 'New York Times Book Review', February 2, 1986 |
