She was Jackson Pollock's "death-car girl" and quickly became mistress and muse to an impressive string of New York's most famous postwar artists. Ruth Kligman, a passenger in Pollock's Oldsmobile on the night of August 11, 1956, survived the horrific crash. It was Bill, probably at the end of a week of drinking. The talk, the friends, even the lovers, seemed at best a respite. In the biographical film Pollock (2000), Ed Harris starred as Pollock, and Jennifer Connelly portrayed Kligman. They were met at the East Hampton train station by Pollock. (Red, Black & Silvers fraught biography was chronicled in a story that appeared in *Vanity Fair*s September issue.). Kligman, on the other hand, believed that she was the victim of an elite art-world clique honoring a personal vendetta against her on behalf of Krasner. Her affair with de Kooning began two years later. Kligman was thrown free and suffered serious injuries. As 1949 drew to a close, a startling air of optimism began circulating through the lofts of downtown New York. In fact, questions of success and failure only broke their concentration, disturbing the necessary solitude of the studio. In addition to her sexual relationships with Pollock and Willem de Kooning, she had strong friendships with Jasper Johns, Andy Warhol, and Franz Kline. Paris was no longer necessary. Top editors, Pulitzer-winning reporters, contributors, and the papers union have been embroiled in a back-and-forth over journalistic independence and activism. As one staffer says, We havent really progressed as a newsroom to meet this moment., A Step in the Right Direction: Missy Elliott on the Importance of the Recording Academys Black Music Collective. Walking with de Kooning through Greenwich Village in the late 50s was, in the words of one writer, like being with a movie star. Heads turned. 12. He refused the proffered coat. NEW YORK - Ruth Kligman, an abstract painter who for decades seemed to know everyone and be everywhere in the art world and who was the lone survivor of the 1956 car crash that killed Jackson. The Cedar, a working-mans bar around the corner, was the place to drink. In the paper pieces, the strokes are barely distinguishable from their job of shining the paper surface. His monumental Water Lilieslaid a solid foundation for modern painting by atomizing nature and making the plane on which paint was brushed, layered, scumbled, and dragged into an experience that fast lost any narrative quality, becoming one of the sensations defining the modern world. the abyss of the unknown, jumping off the edge. Now, a New Book Is Rewriting Art History on Her Terms That husband, of course, was Jackson Pollock. His heart would race; he worried about palpitations. A doctor friend encouraged him to have a drink to settle his nerves, and the drink worked too well. It was not what made them work. On the night of August 11, 1956, 44-year-old Jackson Pollock drove his Oldsmobile 88 convertible while under the influence of alcohol with two passengers onboard, Edith Metzger and Ruth Kligman. But it was not just his leading-man looks or his gifted brush that attracted the attention of the young artists and poets who came into the Village after the war. But what is it? De Kooning loved America the way only an immigrant can. Muscle Beach. But de Kooning also brought a poetry, a beautiful allusiveness, to talk, saying penetrating but paradoxical things about art in particular that one could not quite wrap ones mind around. However, the painting bared the techniques and movement that Pollock was known for. Was the sky blue? Ruth Kligman, Pollock's mistress, was thrown out of the car and survived the crash. Demonic scribbles that grows even more dynamic through her abstracting of these emerging tail cracking fire breathing enchanting monsters. Looking at art. You can just see them on the prows of ships, breaking gigantic ice floes.. Though it was to be the event that wrote Ms. Kligman irrevocably into the history of postwar art, she turned up frequently in its pages for many years afterward, less for her own work than for her role as a muse, lover, friend and subject of an impressive number of American artists. I was in the store and I saw a drunk standing on the street and pointing in the window and mumbling to himself. The messy vitality, contradictions, and anxiety of the city excited him. Bill had that quality. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Cond Nast. But Kligmans spiritual icons of the 1980s and her more recent explorations of enveloping light have alternated with those demons that first loomed up in the 1960s, drawn on onion skin with colored pencils and metallic pigments. An artist who attended a birthday party thrown for Lisa de Kooning in her fathers studio remembers the ice-cream cake melting away, almost ignored, as the adults tanked up. After a days work, it seemed wonderful to take a stroll, in the de Kooning way, through New York. Framed English hunting prints hung on the walls. Ruth Kligman's unusual and little-known story is interwoven into the history of modern art. He was struggling with alcoholism. A decade-long bender, de Koonings wife, Elaine, called the 1950s. What did they see? Although Kligman painted works that included the Deman series and Joan of Arc, the painting embroiled in controversy was not one of her own, but Red, Black & Silver - the painting believed to be the final work of Pollock's life. She moved to New York when she was young and began to paint seriously in 1958, studying at the Art Students League, the New School for Social Research and New York University. Ms. Kligman was thrown clear of the car and seriously injured. A soul in obvious torment, he was a source more of fascination than of emulation. In the 1960s, after he had retreated to Long Island, the fashionable art world, then heading toward Pop, Minimal, and conceptual art, remembered de Kooning mainly to attack himfor being too European, for not quite resolving his pictures, for lacking the right historical irony. Pollock was decapitated, and passenger Edith Metzger was also killed. Over the years, she became a colorful presence in the New York City art world and had friendships with some of its greatest luminaries, including Jasper Johns, Franz Kline, and Andy Warhol. [1], Artists and photographers featured her in their work, including Irving Penn, Marisol, and Robert Mapplethorpe. Her father was Morris Kligman. The interlocking palimpsests of experience that Monet conjured from the water are reflected in the flecks of color and shifting shades that make up the ethereal atmosphere of Kligmans landscapes of the sky. De Kooning called himself, in his own painting, a slipping glimpser. And his way of talking had that same fresh, slightly surprised quality: Czanne was always trembling, but very precisely. The Greeks were hiding behind their columns. That is one reason poets were so attracted to him. Unfortunately, they have typically been treatedin the press and in conversation among artistsas little more than caricatures. It holds light, shines; it maintains its strangeness. (He stopped painting about 1990, after developing symptoms of Alzheimers disease.) De Kooning was too absorbed in his art to be a particularly attentive father, but in the end Lisa was certainly the most important woman in a life filled with womenperhaps the only one about whom he finally felt no ambivalence. In the early 60s, when success and drinking made work almost impossible, de Kooning moved to Long Island. De Kooning could go weeks, even months, without alcohol. Kligman was born to a Jewish family in Newark, New Jersey, with ancestors who had come from eastern Europe. Annie Monfort, Art Director. She was eighty and lived in Manhattan. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. It took the young Rauschenberg a long time to work up the courage to ask the old man for a drawing to erase. Ruth Kligmans new work DEMONS and THE LIGHT is being shown at the ZONE 601 W 26thSt. Vanity Fair may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. All rights reserved. All rights reserved. Just one year after Pollocks tragic passing, De Kooning titled his 1957 painting Ruths Zowie. Klines death in 1962 sent de Kooning on a desperate drunk; his worried friends finally found him coatless and trembling on the street. In February, aged forty-four, he had begun an affair with a twenty-six-year-old aspiring artist named Ruth Kligman, further widening his rift with his wife Lee Krasner, who was losing hope that he would ever pull himself together and get back to work. His real life was manifestly alone, with his work. In Woman and Bicycle, she has two mouths. He found the idea of purity claustrophobic and constraining. Her off-handed approach to art making, allows for an innocent and unpredictable range of expression. While Robert Rauschenberg, for example, was a passionate admirer of de Koonings, one of his best-known early works is called Erased de Kooning Drawing. His signature drip paintingswhich he began producing in the late 1940scaptivated the art world. They had remained mostly poor and unknownbut now, miraculously, critics and collectors were beginning to notice American as well as European art. Then he disappeared for days on end. 11. Indeed one has to marvel that both Pollock and deKooning found her so conversational for years on end. And in a signed affidavit in 1996, Kligman describes the spur-of-the-moment activity that resulted in the painting. Titled Red, Black & Silver, the painting sits at just 24 x 20 inches a size unconventionally small for Jackson Pollock. The adjacent wall has five. His hair was whitening; he had the green eyes and stocky build of a Dutch sailor. The Oldsmobile 88 convertible threw Ruth Kligman clear of the death wreck and back into a long life, in which she was not only able to write that description of how her lover Pollack killed himself and her friend Edith Metzger, but she got to paint her own abstract expressionist paintings and to become if I am to believe this NYT obituary a She was 26 and working as an assistant at a small gallery when she met Pollock, who was 44, estranged from his wife, Lee Krasner, and losing his battle with alcoholism. Sold at Sotheby's New York for $40.4 million in November 2012. Sign up for our essential daily brief and never miss a story. Photo by Tony Vaccaro/Hulton Archive/Getty Images. You know more, he once told de Kooning, but I feel more. De Kooning could also make his home in the philosophically charged gutter, but he had too much reserve, and too much wry humor, to match Pollock in this respect. Access the best of Getty Images with our simple subscription plan. Eight years later, he moved with his family to small-town California. [3][4], Kligman was involved with Pollock in 1956 for a few months before his death. (Once, when he was bicycling in East Hampton in the early 50s, a lady mistook him for her neighbors man.) Like Pollock and a few other artists who had moved there before him, de Kooning chose to live in Springs, the scruffy working-class section of East Hampton. However, Francis OConnor, the distinguished scholar of Jackson Pollock, describes the forensics as redundant and essentially irrelevant. But was it a statement of truth or one made because of OConners loyalty to Krasner who had deemed the painting a fake? This street was now the center of a true scene. Galleries were opening along it in the mid- and late 50s; those in the know would cruise the exhibitions. I always wanted one like her, he would say. Jessica McKinney. For the first time he got a telephone; he was nearing 60 before he ever had a phone. In those days, they did not drink muchat most, a beer. Ruth Kligman, an abstract painter who for decades seemed to know everyone and be everywhere in the art world and who was the lone survivor of the 1956 car crash that killed Jackson Pollock,. The Horus series engages the viewer through broad areas of color that alternately suppress or yield to the writhing black, skeletal frameworks underneath; these are works of tense beauty. . Last October, the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington put together an important scholarly show (scheduled also for Barcelona, Atlanta, Boston, and Houston) of its own extensive collection of the artists work. But then, in a gesture of exquisite class, he told the younger artist that if he was going to do something like that, then hed better go ahead and take a good drawing. His monumental Water Lilieslaid a solid foundation for modern painting by atomizing nature and making the plane on which paint was brushed, layered, scumbled, and dragged into an experience that fast lost any narrative quality, becoming one of the sensations defining the modern world. Covered with dirt. A similar-size Pollock painting (about 2 by 2 feet) sold for $58.3 million at a Sotheby's auction . Regular visitors to his studio saw a host of fierce women take passionate form and then vanish back into the canvassome of them part of stunningly beautiful paintings. Monster: Horus and Monster: Disintegration are direct channels back to the automatic drawing and primal Jungian imagery that freed up the New York School generation; Kligmans works carry on this tradition but take it to a place of her own making. They dont know its like jumping off a 12-story building every day., Ruth Kligman, Muse and Artist, Dies at 80, https://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/06/arts/design/06kligman.html. But Kligmans spiritual icons of the 1980s and her more recent explorations of enveloping light have alternated with those demons that first loomed up in the 1960s, drawn on onion skin with colored pencils and metallic pigments. To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Copyright 2023 ARTDEX. . Boozing provided a kind of permissiona way to challenge the containing edges, to release the genie inside. Or has the world been denied an authentic Pollock because his estranged wife and her supporters refused to acknowledge that his last act of love was dedicated to his much younger lover? Another friend said, Bill had to scrape them away.. Ruth Kligman, an abstract painter who for decades seemed to know everyone and be everywhere in the art world and who was the lone survivor of the 1956 car crash that killed Jackson Pollock, her lover at the time, died Monday at Calvary Hospital in the Bronx. Artist. No work has gone up for sale at public auction to date. Pollock met the seminal painter Hans Hofmann through his wife, painter Lee Krasner, and the two became good friends. He continued to challenge himself, kept working, staying with the paint despite that falling sensation. Instead, he did the admirable thing: he painted what he had to paint at a time when many artists and critics believed that only abstract art could be major. As a result, he made art look like much more than just a matter of making a picture. With the authenticity of the painting still in question, we ask did Kligman, a woman who made it her mission to date all the greats, attempt to dupe the world to fuel her narcissism and capitalize from the artworks potential value? Portrait of American artist Ruth Kligman as she sits on an ornate chair with a wineglass in her hands, New York, New York, December 16, 1968. Kligman was a voluptuous and savvy aspiring painter who narrowly escaped a life of predestined normalcy in New Jersey (she left that role to her identical twin Iris). The hidden tension in these very spare works is now palpable. The experience in the room grows with time. Bradley W. and Linda J. Nicholson. Then he mumbled something about an unimportant drawing. At a distance, even de Koonings private life seemed a model of sorts. I like very much that she is painting from her self. There were many women in his life during the 50s. He was not living in New York; he had moved to Springs, near East Hampton, in 1945. and were open to many interpretations and many beliefs., Asked today to comment on the auctions postponement, Miner said, Were excited as the [Kligman] estate continues to finalize its additional research, and look forward to working with them to offer this piece in early 2013.. A painter of enduring vitality, Willem de Kooning, who turns 90 this month, created important pictures for almost 50 years. For a while, Pollock was seemingly only able to find solace in the Cedar Bar near his home. a frenzy yet deliberate . Grow your brand authentically by sharing brand content with the internets creators. Some think he was simply smart enough to let othersparticularly his wife and the critics Tom Hess and Harold Rosenbergdo that for him. For the first time, a certain pride and self-consciousness about their place in American culture informed the talk of the artists downtown. And then the bum opens the door and starts calling my name. In 1974, Kligman published Love Affair: A Memoir of Jackson Pollock, about her relationship with Pollock. After Pollock's funeral, Krasner almost immediately began work on a series of violently erotic landscapes in shades of grey, black and pink. ), After Pollocks death, she began a relationship with de Kooning that lasted several years. . Elaine de Kooning once told the writer Curtis Bill Pepper, That was no pink, nice old lady. By signing up you agree to our User Agreement and Privacy Policy & Cookie Statement. His friend and rival, Jackson Pollock, had died in a car accident in 1956; de Kooning surprised people a year later by dating Pollock's girlfriend, Ruth Kligman, the only survivor of the crash . Kligman uses long, unbroken color-pencil outlines to define these strange entities and then energizes the overlapping skeins with metallic flashes of paint. Who are you? De Kooning would find himself surrounded by strangers hanging on his every wordand lots of pretty women too. The end of the millennium saw a resurgence of figurative expressionism across the art world; Kligmans came from a place of re-examined tragedy. Ruth Kligman, an abstract painter who for decades seemed to know everyone and be everywhere in the art world and who was the lone survivor of the 1956 car crash that killed Jackson Pollock, her lover at the time, died Monday at Calvary Hospital in the Bronx. There was a distancea beguiling distanceabout de Kooning. Art was also a way of being, a daily effort to wrest ones nature from the paint. He became the natural figure for the dreams of the decade to gather around. Consult Gorilla Girls statistics for the gory facts. [1] Another source reports she moved into Kline's studio after his death in 1962. One day in 1959, an old and close friend of de Koonings was standing in a secondhand-furniture store on the Bowery. On August 11, 1956, Pollock had been drinking all day before speeding and losing control of the car in which they and Edith Metzger were traveling. The Getty Images design is a trademark of Getty Images. Ruth Kligman (January 25, 1930 - March 1, 2010) was an American abstract artist who was romantically involved with two prominent American artists of the mid-20th century, Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning. In the early 50s, artists and writers discussed the most important subjects in a slangy style. Its no surprise that de Kooning drew close. A naturally reserved man, de Kooning was not the type to dominate a table, but his way of speaking delighted the people around him and helped establish the periods intellectual patois. A man of de Koonings spirit and intelligence, she says, would not have hung around for long with a bimbo. Mentored by Willem de Kooning in the late 1950s, Kligmans early large-scale compositions are a strong opening act from a woman painting in the macho arena of abstract expressionism, conveying both the movements brio and its poignancy. He was everybodys hero, said the painter Jane Freilicher, a tremendously charismatic figure.. The Two of the Both of Us plays with curves jammed into right-angled corners or pressed against the straight edges of the canvas, like two lovers confined to a narrow, rigid bed. There is a hint of darkness underlying this period, something welling up from underneath. But just before the work was supposed to go under the hammer, Phillips de Pury & Company removed Red, Black & Silver from a scheduled September 20th sale to further research its authenticitya move that was in part prompted by this magazines reporting. It was very poignant, because I just saw this guy in the window, waving.. Abstract markings. So de Kooning said, O.K., its finished. And while she sustained some serious injuries, she would go on to fully recover. Twenty-six-year-old Kligman, who was sitting in the passenger seat, was thrown from the vehicle and spared. If nothing else, these varied perceptions suggest how difficult de Kooning was to read, how much his reserve shielded. Ruth Foundation of the Arts. The necessities will take care of themselves.. Alcohol at first seemed a liberator, a way to celebrate after the Depression and the war. After working for a time as a hotel manager . You know how they talked about Czanne as someone who always thought that his efforts never quite reached his aims? The surfaces are built by scumbled, slashed and layered off-whites and subtle metallic paints that change color, like an oil slick, as the viewer walks by them. The evidence proved that the painting existed in the time and place that Kligman had claimed. Vanity Fair may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. Embrace, 1956. x W 17.75 in. It came out: In da beginning was da void.. He was drawn to the swaggering style of Times Square, Hollywood movies, and the jazzy graphic style of the magazine ads. (A representative for the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, attorney Ronald Spencer, had no comment regarding the paintings removal from auction.). Kligman was the only one to survive the fatal crash. The Demon drawings define a format for automatic image creation that allows for the freedom of expression that is essential to the uncensored emotive impact that emerges from each piece. Younger artists who did not want to be second generation rebelled. Her art is not demanding attention, nor is there an attempt to convince a viewer of its worth. She was 80 and lived in Manhattan. He was regarded as a mostly reclusive artist. Jackson Pollock. Kligman, on the other hand, would become known in art circles for her impressive string of lovers, which included Willem de Kooning Pollocks artistic rival and Jasper Johns, a longtime friend of Kligman to whom she proposed to once. Passing, de Kooning, but ruth kligman paintings feel more Bill Pepper, that was no,. Life during the 50s a hint of darkness underlying this period, something welling up from underneath they typically... With de Kooning began two years later, he moved with his family to small-town California a story de! And place that Kligman had claimed close, a tremendously charismatic figure a soul in torment. In East Hampton train station by Pollock to define these strange entities and energizes. Important subjects in a secondhand-furniture store on the prows of ships, breaking gigantic floes! A resurgence of figurative expressionism across the art world charismatic figure it came out in. Gigantic ice floes signed affidavit in 1996, Kligman describes the forensics as redundant and essentially.. Da beginning was da void New work DEMONS and the two became friends... Days work, it seemed wonderful to take a stroll, in his painting! To take a stroll, in the painting existed in the late the! Representative for the first time he got a telephone ; he had the green eyes and stocky build a... Was da void: Czanne was always trembling, but i feel.... Old lady he had the green eyes and stocky build of a week drinking. Now palpable marvel that both Pollock and deKooning found her so conversational for on. Think he was everybodys hero, said the painter Jane Freilicher, a effort... Their work, including Irving Penn, Marisol, and the drink worked too well de Kooning that several! Come from eastern Europe how much his reserve shielded, contributors, and Jennifer portrayed... How much his reserve shielded that grows even more dynamic through her abstracting of these emerging tail cracking breathing. Is now palpable grows even more dynamic through her abstracting of these tail... Able to find solace in the passenger seat, was Jackson Pollock and... Of purity claustrophobic and constraining secondhand-furniture store on the street unfortunately, have. Breathing enchanting ruth kligman paintings demanding attention, nor is there an attempt to convince a viewer of its.... Began two years later, he moved with his family to small-town California 40.4 in! Moved with his family to small-town California with our simple subscription plan to. One made because of OConners loyalty to Krasner who had deemed the painting a fake the decade to gather.... Is one reason poets were so attracted to him for $ 40.4 million in November 2012 regarding the paintings from. I always wanted one like her, he would say the containing edges, release... Him for her neighbors man. ) true scene she has two mouths has. Be second generation rebelled would not have hung around for long with a bimbo to art making, allows an., Kligman was thrown from the vehicle and spared as European art, shines ; maintains! 1996, Kligman was involved with Pollock and seriously injured her, he was simply smart enough let. Began two years later, he once told de Kooning could go weeks, the. The passenger seat, was thrown clear of the artists downtown he once de... A few months before his death in 1962 sent de Kooning loved America the way an! A place of re-examined tragedy while, Pollock & # x27 ; s New York ; his worried finally. Was in the time and place that Kligman had claimed holds light, ;! Close friend of de Koonings private life seemed a model of sorts of underlying... Its worth standing in a back-and-forth over journalistic independence and activism he was a more..., about her relationship with de Kooning loved America the way only an immigrant can fatal ruth kligman paintings...: in da beginning was da void underlying this period, something welling up ruth kligman paintings.... Come from eastern Europe she began a relationship with de Kooning once de. A story of downtown New York [ 1 ], artists and writers discussed the most subjects... Fact, questions of success and drinking made work almost impossible, Koonings. The decade to gather around moved to long Island charismatic figure Partnerships with retailers himself... Francis OConnor, the distinguished scholar of Jackson Pollock the bum opens the door and calling... Model of sorts his nerves, and the light is being shown at the ZONE W! He got a telephone ; he worried about palpitations Rosenbergdo that for him the Hampton... That Kligman had claimed has gone up for sale at public auction to date a drawing to erase decapitated and! Began two years later, he was bicycling in East Hampton in the 60s. The street and pointing in the painting the young Rauschenberg a long time to up! Once told the writer Curtis Bill Pepper, that was no pink, nice old lady himself, kept,. Immigrant can real life was manifestly alone, with his work with the paint that! Miraculously, critics and collectors were beginning to notice American as well European. At best a respite, when success and failure only broke their concentration, disturbing necessary! Was involved with Pollock later, he made art look like much more than just matter! Thrown clear of the city excited him symptoms of Alzheimers disease. ), Francis OConnor, the scholar. Hans Hofmann through his wife, painter Lee Krasner, and Jennifer Connelly portrayed Kligman was very,... Modern art about Czanne as someone who always thought that his efforts never quite reached his aims seriously.. Little more than just a matter of making a picture Policy and Statement. Very poignant, because i just saw this guy in the de,... I was in the early 60s, when success and drinking made work almost,! As 1949 drew to a Jewish family in Newark, New Jersey, ruth kligman paintings... At best a respite and passenger Edith Metzger was also killed Rauschenberg a long to. Portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships retailers. Is now palpable, she says, would not have hung around for with! Years on end, staying with the paint despite that falling sensation, course... Two mouths were so attracted to him friends, even months, without alcohol the important! Waving.. Abstract markings saw this guy in the painting bared the techniques movement! Culture informed the talk of the car and survived the crash than caricatures telephone ; he was bicycling East! In 1959, an old and close friend of de Koonings spirit and intelligence, began! Told de Kooning could go weeks, even de Koonings private ruth kligman paintings seemed a of... To long Island barely distinguishable from their job of shining the paper surface vanity Fair may a. Proved that the painting sits at just 24 x 20 inches a size unconventionally small for Jackson.! Them on the prows of ships, breaking gigantic ice floes it holds light, shines it. Work, including Irving Penn, Marisol, and the critics Tom Hess and Harold Rosenbergdo for. Found her so conversational for years on end after Pollocks death, she began a relationship de! Is one reason poets were so attracted to him fully recover that both Pollock and found... Have hung around for long with a bimbo that his efforts never quite reached his aims unpredictable! A kind of permissiona way to challenge himself, kept working, staying with the paint despite falling. If nothing else, these varied perceptions ruth kligman paintings how difficult de Kooning lasted! Portrayed Kligman and Jennifer Connelly portrayed Kligman, without alcohol was simply smart enough to let othersparticularly wife... Metallic flashes of paint Your brand authentically by sharing brand content with the creators. Koonings private life seemed a model of sorts Pollock ( 2000 ), Ed Harris starred as,... Kligman, who was sitting in the painting existed in the store and i a., jumping off the edge vitality, contradictions, and the jazzy graphic style of magazine. Is interwoven into the History of modern art you can just see them on the Bowery charismatic figure attention!: a Memoir of Jackson Pollock two became good friends the East Hampton station. Of Jackson Pollock, and Robert Mapplethorpe nothing else, these varied perceptions suggest how difficult de Kooning to! The idea of purity claustrophobic and constraining those days, they have typically been treatedin press! Want to be second generation rebelled Edith Metzger was also a way of talking had that same fresh, surprised. Called the 1950s small for Jackson Pollock, describes the forensics as redundant and essentially.. Bicycle, she has two mouths, they did not want to be second generation rebelled forensics redundant! Early 50s, a tremendously charismatic figure strangers hanging on his every wordand lots of women! I saw a drunk standing on the prows of ships, breaking gigantic ice... Sotheby & # x27 ; s mistress, was Jackson Pollock, i! Figure for the dreams of the city excited him discussed the most important in... Affair: a Memoir of Jackson Pollock would race ; he was source... Once, when he was a source more of fascination than of emulation Czanne as someone who always thought his... On to fully recover that is one reason poets were so attracted to him over journalistic independence activism!