''Mural'' is a large painting by American artist

Jackson Pollock Paul Jackson Pollock (; January 28, 1912August 11, 1956) was an American painter and a major figure in the abstract expressionist movement. He was widely noticed for his " drip technique" of pouring or splashing liquid household paint onto a hor ...

. Although signed and dated 1943, the signature and date were not added until 1947, and the work was probably completed around the fall of 1943. It was made with oil paint (and an off-white water-based paint) on linen, and is Pollock's largest canvas, measuring . The work was commissioned by

Peggy Guggenheim Marguerite "Peggy" Guggenheim ( ; August 26, 1898 – December 23, 1979) was an American art collector, bohemian and socialite. Born to the wealthy New York City Guggenheim family, she was the daughter of Benjamin Guggenheim, who went down wi ...

for the long entrance hall of her townhouse at 155 East 61st Street in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

. The work marks an important transitional moment in Pollock's artistic career, from his earlier works of

surrealist Surrealism is a cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists depicted unnerving, illogical scenes and developed techniques to allow the unconscious mind to express itself. Its aim was, according to ...

abstraction towards

action painting Action painting, sometimes called "gestural abstraction", is a style of painting in which paint is spontaneously dribbled, splashed or smeared onto the canvas, rather than being carefully applied. The resulting work often emphasizes the physical a ...

. It has been held by the

University of Iowa Museum of Art The University of Iowa Stanley Museum of Art is a visual arts institution that is part of the University of Iowa in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. It is accredited by the American Alliance of Museums. Since its inception, the museum has partnere ...

since 1951.

Background

In 1943, Pollock had recently come to the end of a period working for the

Federal Art Project The Federal Art Project (1935–1943) was a New Deal program to fund the visual arts in the United States. Under national director Holger Cahill, it was one of five Federal Project Number One projects sponsored by the Works Progress Administrati ...

, and was working at the Museum of Non-Objective Painting (later the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum). The talent displayed by his small early paintings was recognized by Howard Putzel, who introduced him to Guggenheim. She was an art collector and dealer, and Pollock signed a contract with her gallery in July 1943 under which he would be paid $150 per month as a retainer, to be set against any proceeds from the sale of his artworks. ''Mural'' was Pollock's first commission. Guggenheim first considered asking for a mural to be painted on the wall, but

Marcel Duchamp Henri-Robert-Marcel Duchamp (, , ; 28 July 1887 – 2 October 1968) was a French painter, sculptor, chess player, and writer whose work is associated with Cubism, Dada, and conceptual art. Duchamp is commonly regarded, along with Pablo Picasso ...

suggested that it should be painted on canvas so it could be moved. Guggenheim bought an oversize canvas of Belgian linen and gave it to Pollock, but otherwise gave him no direction or instructions, and Pollock was simply asked to paint whatever he wished. A wall had to be removed to allow the large canvas to be installed. The mural was intended to be completed before a planned exhibition of his works opening in November 1943, but according to Lee Krasner, he continued to stare at a blank canvas, saying he was " blocked". Eventually, it was conventionally said, around 1 January 1944, he began frenetic work, completing the entire work in one day. It appears that in reality the painting was finished earlier than that and was not done in one day. Francis O'Connor's research found that Pollock sent a letter in January 1944 telling his brother, Frank, “I painted quite a large painting for Miss Guggenheim during the summer—8 feet x 20 feet. It was grand fun,”. Another letter from Peggy Guggenheim on 12 November 1943 to a friend, in which she describes: "We had a party for the new genius Jackson Pollock; who is having a show here now. He painted a 20 foot mural in my house in the entrance. Everyone likes it nearly except Kenneth eferring to another tenant Rather bad luck on him as he has to see it every time he goes in and out . . ." Investigations applied during Mural’s recent stints in the Museum of Modern Art and Getty conservation labs validate O’Connor’s documentary research, further disproving the legend through technical means. The Getty conservators conclude definitively that “rapid work is not the case here, as there are many areas of dried oil paint evident under subsequent layers.” Scientific analyses of minute samples of paint, they explain, confirm this as well.

Description

''Mural'' is a largely abstract work with the suggestion of several human figures walking, or possibly birds, or letters and numbers, in broad swirls of black and white. It combines influences from artists such as Thomas Hart Benton,

Albert Pinkham Ryder Albert Pinkham Ryder (March 19, 1847 – March 28, 1917) was an American painter best known for his poetic and moody allegorical works and seascapes, as well as his eccentric personality. While his art shared an emphasis on subtle variations of ...

and El Greco, and Mexican mural artists such as David Alfaro Siqueiros.

Painting technique

The painting was investigated by the scientists of the

Getty Museum The J. Paul Getty Museum, commonly referred to as the Getty, is an art museum in Los Angeles, California housed on two campuses: the Getty Center and Getty Villa. The Getty Center is located in the Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles and fe ...

and the

University of Iowa The University of Iowa (UI, U of I, UIowa, or simply Iowa) is a public research university in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. Founded in 1847, it is the oldest and largest university in the state. The University of Iowa is organized into 12 col ...

around 2012. Pollock employed cerulean blue, cadmium yellow,

vermilion Vermilion (sometimes vermillion) is a color, color family, and pigment most often made, since antiquity until the 19th century, from the powdered mineral cinnabar (a form of mercury sulfide, which is toxic) and its corresponding color. It i ...

, and

umber Umber is a natural brown earth pigment that contains iron oxide and manganese oxide. In its natural form, it is called raw umber. When calcined, the color becomes warmer and it becomes known as burnt umber. Its name derives from ''terra d'omb ...

, with touches of

phthalocyanine Phthalocyanine () is a large, aromatic, macrocyclic, organic compound with the formula and is of theoretical or specialized interest in chemical dyes and photoelectricity. It is composed of four isoindole units linked by a ring of nitrogen ato ...

green and blue mixed in oil and a

casein Casein ( , from Latin ''caseus'' "cheese") is a family of related phosphoproteins ( αS1, aS2, β, κ) that are commonly found in mammalian milk, comprising about 80% of the proteins in cow's milk and between 20% and 60% of the proteins in hum ...

household paint.Jackson Pollock, Mural, ColourLex
/ref> Most of the paint was applied with a brush, but some appears to have been splashed on.

Reception

The importance of ''Mural'' was recognized immediately. The art critic

Clement Greenberg Clement Greenberg () (January 16, 1909 – May 7, 1994), occasionally writing under the pseudonym K. Hardesh, was an American essayist known mainly as an art critic closely associated with American modern art of the mid-20th century and a formali ...

wrote: "I took one look at it and I thought, 'Now that's great art,' and I knew Jackson was the greatest painter this country had produced." After Guggenheim moved to Venice in 1947, she arranged with Lester Longman to donate the work to the

. It was shipped to Iowa in 1951, where it is still held by the

Conservation

The condition of the work had deteriorated by the 1970s, with the canvas sagging due to a weak stretcher and paint starting to flake off. The

relined the painting in 1973, adding a second canvas with a wax adhesive, and also replacing the stretcher and varnishing the surface to stabilise the paint. The painting was sent to the

J. Paul Getty Museum The J. Paul Getty Museum, commonly referred to as the Getty, is an art museum in Los Angeles, California housed on two campuses: the Getty Center and Getty Villa. The Getty Center is located in the Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles and fea ...

in Los Angeles for 18 months from 2012 to 2014 to be fully conserved. The varnish was removed, and the stretcher was replaced again, this time with a curved stretcher that respects the sagged shape of the canvas. This conservation work revealed several layers of dried oil paints, without the distinct colours being swirled together, suggest that the work was not in fact completed in one day as had previously been thought, but rather was completed over a period of weeks, and was left to dry for several days between each session. However, the use of a quicker-drying white water-based

house paint to add finishing touches to the upper layer suggests the painting may have been completed in hurry. Almost all of the drips of the thickly-applied paint flow in one direction, indicating that the work was mostly painted in an upright position with a brush. However, thin strands of pink indicate that some paint was applied using Pollock's famous "

drip Drip or DRIP may refer to: * Mesomycetozoea, a class of eukaryotes also known as the DRIP clade * Drip gas, natural gas condensate * Drip irrigation, in agriculture and gardening * Dripping liquid * Drip email (campaign), the process of automati ...

technique, in which the medium is laid horizontally on the floor. After the exhibition of Mural at the J. Paul Getty Museum, the painting was transported to the Sioux City Art Center in Iowa for a nine-month exhibition that concluded in April 2015. From there, the restored painting was exhibited at the Peggy Guggenheim Museum in Venice in 2015. Its value was estimated in 2016 at around $140 million. It was exhibited at the

Columbia Museum of Art The Columbia Museum of Art is an art museum in the American city of Columbia, South Carolina. History The Columbia Museum of Art was originally in the 1908 private residence of the city's Taylor family. Located on Senate Street in Columbia, adj ...

in 2019, and then at the

Boston Museum of Fine Arts The Museum of Fine Arts (often abbreviated as MFA Boston or MFA) is an art museum in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the 20th-largest art museum in the world, measured by public gallery area. It contains 8,161 paintings and more than 450,000 works ...

in 2019-2020.

References

Jackson Pollock's ''Mural''
Getty Museum
''Mural''
University of Iowa Museum of Art.
Jackson Pollock, ''Mural''
Khan Academy
The Myth of Jackson Pollock, Peggy Guggenheim, and the Masterpiece Created in One Night
Artsy Editorial, Abigail Cain, 12 September 2016
''Jackson Pollock's Mural, Energy Made Visible''
David Anfam, Thames & Hudson
Jackson Pollock, the one-man tornado who spattered his way to fame
''The Guardian'', Jonathan Jones, 24 April 2015

Peggy Guggenheim Collection, April 23 – November 16, 2015
''Mural'', 1943 by Jackson Pollock

Jackson Pollock MuralJackson Pollock Mural, ColourLex
{{Jackson Pollock 1943 paintings Paintings by Jackson Pollock Abstract expressionism