Artwork Record
Images
Metadata
Artist |
Jackson Pollock (1912-1956) |
Title |
Untitled (after Number 8 [Black Flowing]) |
Date |
1964 |
Medium |
Photographic screen print |
Dimensions |
16 1/2 x 19 1/8 in. |
Description |
This is one of six screen prints made from photographs of six of Pollock's 1951 black paintings exhibited at the Betty Parsons Gallery in November-December of that year. The project was suggested by Pollock's close friend, the architect and sculptor Tony Smith, probably as a money-making venture. The prints were made by Pollock's brother, Sanford McCoy (1909-1963), at his print shop in Connecticut. Adapting a reproductive process that Andy Warhol would later legitimize for fine art use, McCoy projected photographic negatives on screens treated with a light-sensitive chemical that hardened on exposure to form the stencils. They were printed in editions of about 25, and packaged in portfolios for sale in the gallery. Unfortunately neither the paintings nor the prints based on them were commercial successes. Potential buyers were disappointed by their monochromatic starkness and the artist's return to figurative, if highly stylized, pictographic imagery. After Pollock's death, Lee Krasner authorized posthumous editions of 50 of each of the images, using the original screens. Supervised by McCoy's widow, Arloie, the printmaker Bernard Steffen completed the project in January 1964. The Strathmore paper is the same type and sheet size (23 x 29 in.) used in 1951, and the black ink is essentially similar to the original edition. This print, an unnumbered proof from the posthumous edition, is based on the painting Number 8 (Black Flowing), 1951. Gift of the Estate of Lee Krasner Pollock. |
Catalog Number |
1987.109.2 |
Object Name |