In this compelling, authoritative volume, Ellen Landau locates the man and the artist in the continuum of his times, and recreates the social and cultural milieu of NewYork in the 1940s and 1950s from which Pollock's work emerged. The artist's early years are chronicled from his birth in the Wild West town of Cody, Wyoming, through his troubled school years, to his arrival in NewYork and periods of rewarding study with Thomas Hart Benton, David Alfaro Siqueiros and Stanley William Hayter. Though he became withdrawn and abrasive, and was often drunk, Pollock nonetheless attracted many other mentors during this time, most importantly of all, Lee Krasner. A fellow artist (and later his wife), her knowledge of art-world thinking and conviction of Pollock's genius were essential to his development.

ONE : The Wild One

TW0 : Birth

THREE : Gods of the Modern World

FOVR : The Magic Mirror

FIVE : Male and Female

SIX : The Circle Is Broken

SEVEN : A Whiff of Primal Hordes

EIGHW : Acceptance and Transition

NINE : Sounds in the Grass

TEN : States of Order

ELEVEN: "The Dying of the Light"

TWELVE : The American Prometheus

Chronology

Notes

Acknowledgments

Selected Bibliography

List of Illustrations

Index

Photograph Credits