Charles Cecil Pollock (December 25, 1902, in

Denver Denver () is a consolidated city and county, the capital, and most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Its population was 715,522 at the 2020 census, a 19.22% increase since 2010. It is the 19th-most populous city in the Unit ...

, Colorado - May 8, 1988, in Paris) was an American abstract painter and the eldest brother of artist

Jackson Pollock Paul Jackson Pollock (; January 28, 1912August 11, 1956) was an American painter and a major figure in the abstract expressionism, abstract expressionist movement. He was widely noticed for his "Drip painting, drip technique" of pouring or splas ...

Biography

Pollock was born on December 25, 1902, in Denver, Colorado. He was the eldest of five brothers born to Stella May McClure and LeRoy Pollock. His father, who was born as a McCoy, had taken the surname of his parents' neighbors, who adopted him after his own parents died within a year of each other. In 1926 Pollock moved to New York to study painting. In 1930, he and another brother, Frank Pollock, persuaded their brother Jackson to join them there, effectively launching his own artistic career. In 1935, he moved to Washington, D.C. to work with the

Resettlement Administration The Resettlement Administration (RA) was a New Deal U.S. federal agency created May 1, 1935. It relocated struggling urban and rural families to communities planned by the federal government. On September 1, 1937, it was succeeded by the Farm S ...

. Two years later he took a job as a political cartoonist for the

United Automobile Workers The International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace, and Agricultural Implement Workers of America, better known as the United Auto Workers (UAW), is an American labor union that represents workers in the United States (including Puerto Rico) ...

' newspaper in Detroit, Michigan. From 1938 to 1942 Pollock supervised Mural Painting and Graphic Arts for the Federal Arts Project (WPA) in Michigan. After visiting Michigan State University in 1942, he joined the faculty in the Art Department, where he would teach for the next two decades.

Artistic style

Charles Pollock's career as a painter is sharply divided into two periods. Until the mid 1940s, Pollock followed the

social realist Social realism is the term used for work produced by painters, printmakers, photographers, writers and filmmakers that aims to draw attention to the real socio-political conditions of the working class as a means to critique the power structure ...

movement, studying under Thomas Hart Benton at the

Art Students League of New York The Art Students League of New York is an art school at 215 West 57th Street in Manhattan, New York City, New York. The League has historically been known for its broad appeal to both amateurs and professional artists. Although artists may st ...

. Pollock was inspired by the works of the Mexican Mural Renaissance, particularly the works of

Diego Rivera Diego María de la Concepción Juan Nepomuceno Estanislao de la Rivera y Barrientos Acosta y Rodríguez, known as Diego Rivera (; December 8, 1886 – November 24, 1957), was a prominent Mexican painter. His large frescoes helped establish the ...

and

José Clemente Orozco José Clemente Orozco (November 23, 1883 – September 7, 1949) was a Mexican caricaturist and painter, who specialized in political murals that established the Mexican Mural Renaissance together with murals by Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Si ...

. During the

Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...

and the New Deal era of the 1930s, Pollock began working for the Resettlement Administration, alongside fellow Social Realist

Ben Shahn Ben Shahn (September 12, 1898 – March 14, 1969) was an American artist. He is best known for his works of social realism, his left-wing political views, and his series of lectures published as ''The Shape of Content''. Biography Shahn was bor ...

, supervising murals through the Midwestern and Southern United States. Pollock was then selected as supervisor of the mural painting and graphic arts division of 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 ...

at the WPA, settling in Detroit, Michigan. Charles Pollock abandoned social realism in the 1940s, and turned to

abstract expressionism Abstract expressionism is a post–World War II art movement in American painting, developed in New York City in the 1940s. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve international influence and put New York at the center of the ...

and color field painting. Some attribute the shift to the influence of his famous brother Jackson, although Charles Pollock painted in a very calm and organized manner unlike Jackson's drip painting style.

Legacy

Pollock had painted public works projects for the

Michigan State University Michigan State University (Michigan State, MSU) is a public land-grant research university in East Lansing, Michigan. It was founded in 1855 as the Agricultural College of the State of Michigan, the first of its kind in the United States. It ...

in the early 1940s, when it was then Michigan State College; three of his murals can be seen in the Fairchild Theatre foyer. A collection of Pollock's later abstract expressionist works are housed in Paris, the city where Pollock died in 1988. The

Smithsonian American Art Museum The Smithsonian American Art Museum (commonly known as SAAM, and formerly the National Museum of American Art) is a museum in Washington, D.C., part of the Smithsonian Institution. Together with its branch museum, the Renwick Gallery, SAAM holds ...

also houses dozens of works by Charles Pollock.

References

External links

Charles Pollock Papers, 1875–1994

Archives of American Art The Archives of American Art is the largest collection of primary resources documenting the history of the visual arts in the United States. More than 20 million items of original material are housed in the Archives' research centers in Washing ...

Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Found ...

Charles Pollock Archives
- https://charlespollockart.com/ The Charles Pollock Archives present the work of American artist Charles Pollock (1902-1988)
Photograph of Pollock family reunion, 1950
Archives of American Art
Jackson Pollock and Charles Pollock in New York, 1930
Archives of American Art {{DEFAULTSORT:Pollock, Charles 1902 births 1988 deaths 20th-century American painters American male painters Abstract expressionist artists Artists from New York (state) Jackson Pollock Federal Art Project artists Works Progress Administration in Michigan Federal Art Project administrators Sibling artists