Who is Jackson Pollock?

Picture a painter in the act of creative passion: dissatisfied with the usual approach to painting, he throws a canvas on the floor, dances across it in a trance, a stick smeared with paint in his hand, and flinging the stick to drip down bright strings of color. Gradually the canvas below becomes an ocean of symbols, a vehicle to a previously untold story…or a mess.
Such was the unique and controversial “drip technique” of artist Jackson Pollock, a leader in the abstract expressionist movement in the New York arts scene in the late 1940s and early 1950s.
Born in Wyoming in 1912, raised in California and Arizona, Pollock was driven, restless, and approached painting like a contact sport. Encounters with Native American cultures of the West and influences from contemporary artists like Pablo Picasso and David Alfaro Siqueiros shaped Pollock’s evolution as an artist. As he created works like Number 18, some viewers and critics responded enthusiastically to his otherworldly, rhythmic designs while others thought he was playing a prank.
Throughout his brief career, Pollock battled with alcoholism, critics, sudden popularity, and dissatisfaction with his work. Therapy sessions, his marriage to artist Lee Krasner, and support from benefactor Peggy Guggenheim sustained Pollock at the height of his success.
But Pollock’s struggle with alcohol continued, resulting in reckless behavior and an affair with artist Ruth Kligman. In August 1956, Pollock went for a drive with Kligman and friend Edith Metzger while drunk and crashed his car. The accident resulted in Pollock’s and Metzger’s deaths with Kligman as the survivor.
Jackson Pollock’s bold artistic style earned him a place in art history. The 1989 biography Jackson Pollock: An American Saga by Naifeh and Smith and the 2000 film Pollock starring Ed Harris in the title role brings the artist’s technique to life.

The American art critic Harold Rosenberg 1609 - 1978, coined the term action painting in his essay 'American Action Painters (ArtNews 1952) . Jackson Pollock was a forerunner in this legacy. Pollock struggled between representation and not representation in the beginning and his struggles derived a newer form - actions and rushes of color, textures, material as symbol, layers of paint and an intimacy with 'process' made his visions sublime to the viewer. Action as process constituted Pollock performing over and above the canvas in every way imaginable. Body, and paint were primary mediums - dripping, splashing or throwing paint came naturally.
Action Painting made Pollock an iconic figure in the group of Abstract Expressionists. Pollock married the painter Lee Krasner and Peggy Guggenheim of the Guggenheim museum was an integral support system - avenue to his practice.

Jackson Pollock (1912-56) is an American artist best known for his contributions to Abstract Expressionism, an art movement that arose in New York in the 1940s. The emergence of Abstract Expressionism is attributed, in part, to the shift of the Western art world from Paris to New York amidst the European devastation of World War II. As opposed to earlier modern art, the Movement is most broadly defined by work that exhibits abstract subject matter and evokes strong emotions in the viewer.
Gestural abstraction, the type of Abstract Expressionism for which Pollock is known, relies on the energetic and expressive application of paint to a surface. The artist used a wide variety of tools to create his work including many sizes of brush and palette knives; his particular technique is usually called "drip and splash" because he often dripped or threw paint onto a canvas from a distance. In contrast, other Abstract Expressionist artists were called chromatic abstractionists because they focused on the emotional resonance of color specifically.
In an influential article in 1952, the art critic Harold Rosenberg was the first to coin the term "action painting" to describe the philosophy and techniques of Pollock (and other gestural abstractionists):

What was to go on the canvas was not a picture but an event. The painter no longer approached his easel with an image in mind; he went up to it with material in his hand to do something to that other piece of material in front of him. The image would be the result of this encounter. ("The American Action Painters," 1952)

Jackson Pollock was married to Lee Krasner, an influential Abstract Expressionist in her own right. Too often eclipsed in a male-dominated art world by the strong personality and bold paintings of her husband, Krasner's work was "discovered" and championed in the 1970s by feminist art historians.

Jackson Pollock is an American artist recognized as one of the leaders of the Abstract Expressionism movement. This artistic trend arose in the 1950s, at the end of the Second World War, strongly influenced by European surrealism. It is characterized by the need for artists to express themselves through color, gestures, and matter.
Jackson Pollock introduces a new way of painting in the history of art called "action painting". The artist places his canvas on the ground and moves around his work. Gesture and movement are two key elements in Pollock's art. Thus was born the technique of "dripping", where the artist throws and pours paint on the canvas using a stick or directly with the paint bucket.

" On the floor I am more at ease. I feel nearer, more part of the painting, since this way I can walk around it, work from the four sides and literally be in the painting. " (Jackson Pollock)

With Jackson Pollock, the painter takes part of his painting and becomes an extension of it. His most famous paintings are exhibited at Moma and Gungenheim museum in New York, such as Autumn Rhythm, Number 30.
Further readings :
https://www.moma.org/artists/4675
https://www.guggenheim.org/artwork/artist/jackson-pollock

Jackson Pollock was an American artist best known for his “drip and pour” paintings of the 1940s and 1950s. Born Paul Jackson Pollock in 1912 in Cody, Wyoming, he grew up in Arizona and California and began studying painting at the Manual Arts High School in Los Angeles. At the age of 18 he moved to New York City to study at the Art Students League with Thomas Hart Benton. Pollock’s early work reflected the influence of Pablo Picasso and Surrealismas well as Native American Art, but by the mid-1940s he began experimenting with “automatic creation,” an approach that involved dripping and swirling quick-drying paint onto a canvas.

Jackson Pollock became the leading innovator of Abstract Expressionism, an art movement characterized by an emotional approach to content and execution that is essentially “expressionist.” Abstract Expressionism was the result of various influences, particularly Surrealism, Synthetic Cubism, and De Stijl.

Because Pollock dripped, poured, and flung his paint, many felt that he had no control. In truth, he exercised control and selection by the rhymical, dancing movement of his body. His large painted surfaces moved in overall patterns of continuous energy. The act of painting itself became a major part of the content of Pollock’s paintings. A similar approach by many of his colleagues led to the term “action painting.”

In 1945 Pollock married American painter Lee Krasner, and the couple moved to Springs on Long Island, New York. Jackson Pollock was killed in an automobile accident in 1956 not far from his home.

Though Pollock started out as a comparatively conventional artist, he became world renowned in the 1950s as the leading painter of the abstract expressionist movement.
He was the innovator of what became known as the "drip and splash" technique. It involved Pollock lying the canvas on the floor, standing over it with his brush, and dripping paint all over it. He would also use knives and sticks to brush or smear the paint, and add depth to his work. The idea was for him to create a work free from the confines of human consciousness.
As he stated:

Painting is self-discovery. Every good artist paints what he is.

At the height of his fame, Pollock was recognized as arguably the most popular commercial and critical artist in the world. Most importantly, he was seen as the first American artist to bring European modernism into the American mainstream.
Some of Jackson Pollock's most famous works include The Deep, Number 5, Mural On Indian Red Ground, Autumn Rhythm, and Blue Poles.