Several motifs here, including the bull's head on the right side, attest to Pollock's growing preoccupation with Pablo Picasso. Others, like the constellations of stick figures, are Pollock's own invention. Soon after he first encountered the Surrealists in the late thirties, Pollock wrote that he was "particularly impressed with their concept of the source of art being the unconscious." The ostensibly random and arbitrarily juxtaposed signs, symbols, and scribbles on this sheet perhaps emerged from his attempt to tap this source.

Gallery label from

Jackson Pollock: A Collection Survey, 1934-1954, November 22, 2015–May 1, 2016.

Medium Black colored pencil on paper
Dimensions 11 x 14" (27.8 x 35.4 cm)
Credit Gift of Charles B. Benenson
Object number 712.1980
Department Drawings and Prints

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Jackson Pollock

Jackson Pollock

American, 1912–1956 86 works online

In 1947 Jackson Pollock arrived at a new mode of working that brought him international fame. His method consisted of flinging and dripping thinned enamel paint onto an unstretched canvas laid on the floor of his studio.

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