Drawing Into Painting

The present text is a revision of an original text written for Jackson Pollock: Works on Paper, published by The Museum of Modern Art and The Drawings Society in 1969. In the intervening period I have given a great deal of thought to the implications of some of the patterns of Pollock’s work and have also reexamined some of the assessments I made at that time, especially of the last works. This revision incorporates these new observations, but is specifically directed to the relation of automatic drawing to the “drip” style and the role of drawing in Pollock’s work from late 1951 to 1953. I have also incorporated new observations on the implications of his radical style for twentieth-century art in general and for twentieth-century drawing in particular, as well as comments on the American background of the work. New also are observations concerning Pollock’s subject.