Jackson Pollock: An American Saga, Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith

Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith have written a book I love about a man I hate.

Jackson Pollock, an alcoholic misogynist well-known in the New York art scene pre-Life magazine for public urination and violent rages under the influence, props up their fascinating looks at American history from the turn of the century until his death in 1956. The movement of his family from East to West, as they follow opportunities, or the promise of them, to the fields of Iowa, down to the cowboy territory on the old west and on to California is a tale quintessential to our country’s pathos. The migration back to metropolitan New York City subsequent the failure of these meandering dreams is the icing on the Americana cake. That sweep is epic.

What disappoint is the artist in question: the emperor has no clothes. If we pour enough into him, like founding myths, Rivera, the WPA, Greenberg, and Guggenheim, Jackson’s story is worth telling. But by the extensive evidence presented, the record of his life alone would hardly fill a pamphlet and make better fodder for a police report than a brilliant biography. Was he an essential player in the Midcentury American art revolution? Absolutely…but in the role of tranquilized pawn as opposed to rainmaker.

The best thing Jackson Pollock ever did of his own initiative to further his career was kill himself, which he probably would have managed sooner had Krasner the will to focus on her own work instead of fishing him so regularly out of the gutter. The thought of him as the elder statesman of American painting, assuming he had avoided both the wheel of his car and cirrhosis, is absurd. No one can peddle the same schtick forever and retain respect, as reflected herein by the career stalls experienced by Benton and Dali.

With his fiery death close to the peak of fame Jackson ensured his membership in the ranks of the immortal national tragedies we rally behind patriotically: Dean, Monroe, Morrison. Perfectly preserved in the ideal artifice, celebrity, without a pesky human to interrupt the course of our worship, we swoon. And when it comes to art, who doesn’t love a limited edition?

Jackson Pollock: An American Saga is beguiling, intelligent and circumspect – all characteristics the subject lacks. It’s still worth reading. That the pithy framework of Pollock the man has produced a work this fine is proof of genius, albeit on the part of the authors.