Jackson Pollock (1912 1956) was one of the most influential and provocative American artists of the twentieth century. This fully illustrated publication accompanies the first exhibition in over three decades of a crucial phase of his work, referred to as the Black Pourings.

This controversial body of black enamel and oil paintings, which were exceptional in their absolute merging of colour and surface, are accompanied here by drawings that are regarded as his most important and productive as a draughtsman. A number of virtually unknown and rarely seen sculptures are also included, illuminating Pollock s experimentations with space, density and figuration. In a groundbreaking essay in 1965, art historian Michael Fried remarked that the development of the Black Pourings showed Pollock to be on the verge of an entirely new and different kind of painting ... of virtually limitless potential.

Produced between 1951 and 1953, during a personally difficult period in his life, these works signalled a major change in direction in Pollock s oeuvre, away from his iconic style. This shift was a deliberate move away from his defining drip technique to a new pour , anticipating the arrival of post-painterly abstraction in the late 1950s and early 1960s. As well as a new appraisal of the Black Pourings by Michael Fried, the publication includes essays by Jo Applin, Gavin Delahunty, and Stephanie Straine discussing the paintings, drawings and sculptures.