Standard-bearer of Abstract Expressionism, inventor of the "drip painting"
An American painter, the emblem of Abstract Expressionism and a key figure in pulling the world’s art center from Paris to New York. He laid huge canvases on the floor and walked around them, letting paint drip, fling, and pour from sticks and cans — no center, no image, only the traces of energy. This "action painting" shifted the point of painting entirely from "what to paint" to the process of "how to paint" itself.
Pollock said that while working he felt he was "in the painting." He used no easel, nailing the canvas to the floor and pouring paint from every side, every swing of his body left on the surface. What the viewer sees is not a scene but a dance, a record of energy released — painting became, for the first time, pure action.
Below are how modern works borrow or reinterpret this name or story — not the original material. The two differ, so keep them apart.