This volume examines the nature of American abstract expressionist artist Jackson Pollock's (1912-1956) paintings. The author discusses Pollock's rivalry with Picasso, the impact of Jung, the meanings embedded within Pollock's works, the context in which they were seen and the mythology which surrounds Pollock's persona. Pollock abandoned the tradition of easel painting and executed his paintings on the floor, some on a monumental scale. He developed a way of working in which he poured, dripped or splashed the paint onto the canvas, allowing the pull of gravity to play a full part in the execution of the work. Walking around the painting, at times standing on it, Pollock became immersed in the act of painting. The source of his art, he claimed, was the unconscious. Pollock's radical approach to abstract painting was underscored, however, by a residual interest in the figure which, until recently, has consistently been ignored in interpreting the celebrated dripped paintings.

Educated at Magdalen College, Oxford where he read Modern History and French, he pursued post-graduate studies in History of Art before taking his first post as curator of Kettle’s Yard, University of Cambridge. During the six years that he ran the gallery he developed the exhibition programme to become one of the leading venues for modern and contemporary art outside London. During this period the gallery doubled in size. With exhibitions of the work of Käthe Kollwitz, Ben Nicholson, Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, Frank Dobson, John Piper’s stained glass, Shirazeh Houshiary and Alison Wilding and thematic shows about Circle and recent Spanish art (the first exhibition of Spanish art to take place in the UK for more than 20 years) among others, Kettle’s Yard became well known nationally.