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Jackson Pollock: Energy Made Visible
Nowhere is the complex and destructive painter Jackson Pollock (1912–1956) revealed with more compassion and insight than in this exemplary biography. Friedman, a friend of Pollock's and active in the art world, shows him to be a brilliant man tormented by his relationship to his family; an artist who worked hard through years of poverty to achieve his controversial painting technique; the first American painter to gain an international reputation for himself and for what has been variously called Action Painting or Abstract Expressionism; and a man who struggled with alcohol and the tension between gentleness and violence.Newly illustrated with seminal Pollock paintings, this book takes the reader inside the art world of New York during the '40s and '50s, when Action Painting first emerged. Friedman reveals what it meant to Pollock to experience the invasion of his studio and of the very act of painting by the external pressures of shows, reviews, films, dealers, critics, hostile publicity; and how, despite it all, Pollock created many of the most graceful and powerful paintings ever made in America.
- GenresArtBiographyNonfiction
368 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1972
About the author
B.H. Friedman
24 books6 followersBernard Harper Friedman was a real estate executive who gave up his business career to write well-received novels and art criticism and whose books included an early biography of Jackson Pollock.
From the time he graduated from Cornell in 1948 until the early 1960s, Mr. Friedman was by some standards a case study in postwar American business success. He worked in New York City real estate, mostly for Uris Brothers (later known as the Uris Buildings Corporation), a successful firm run by his uncles, where he rose from assistant residential manager of a single building to vice president and company director.
But he was hardly a conventional businessman. A jazz aficionado, an art collector, an experimenter with drugs (his 2006 memoir, ''Tripping,'' recounts his mind-bending experiences with the guru of psychedelia Timothy Leary), he was, while going to the office by day, also writing fiction and contributing articles on literature, art, architecture and music to a variety of publications.
''Circles,'' his first novel, about ''sex, status, and professional aggressiveness in the Abstract Expressionist set in New York and East Hampton,'' as The New Yorker described it, was published in early 1962, and the next year he left the real estate business to become a full-time writer.
Mr. Friedman's fiction generally resided just outside the mainstream, and though several of his books were published by prominent houses, in the early 1970s he was a founding member of the Fiction Collective, a nonprofit venture run for and by writers who were being increasingly marginalized by commercial publishers.
Mr. Friedman often wrote about the art world, which formed part of his social milieu even when he was a businessman, and he often wrote about writers. In books like ''Almost a Life'' (1975), about a biographer who becomes entwined in the life of his subject; ''The Polygamist'' (1981), about the loves of an Islamic studies professor, with frequent invocations of the tale-weaving Scheherazade; and ''Coming Close'' (1982), a novella and overlapping stories that hew closely to the facts of his own life, he experimented with the divide between fiction and autobiography and examined the relationship between lives and the stories of lives.
He was an early collector of Pollock's work, and he also became a friend. His book ''Jackson Pollock: Energy Made Visible'' is generally credited with being the first Pollock biography. On its publication in 1972, the art critic Hilton Kramer, writing in The New York Times, called it ''a book that everyone interested in the social history of modern art will want to read.''
Bernard Harper Friedman, known as Bob to his friends, was born in Manhattan on July 27, 1926. His father, Leonard, was in the shoe business. His mother, Madeline Copland Uris, whose brothers ran the real estate business, was a cousin of the composer Aaron Copland. He went to both public and private schools in New York, then entered Cornell, where he started in pre-med and ended up studying literature. His college years were interrupted by two years in the Navy, 1944-46.
Mr. Friedman's expansive biography of the sculptor and arts patron Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney was published in 1978. In addition, he wrote short stories, plays and monographs of artists.
In 1948, while he was finishing at Cornell, Mr. Friedman eloped with his second cousin, Abby Noselson. She died in 2003. His brother, the writer Sanford Friedman, died in 2010.
From the time he graduated from Cornell in 1948 until the early 1960s, Mr. Friedman was by some standards a case study in postwar American business success. He worked in New York City real estate, mostly for Uris Brothers (later known as the Uris Buildings Corporation), a successful firm run by his uncles, where he rose from assistant residential manager of a single building to vice president and company director.
But he was hardly a conventional businessman. A jazz aficionado, an art collector, an experimenter with drugs (his 2006 memoir, ''Tripping,'' recounts his mind-bending experiences with the guru of psychedelia Timothy Leary), he was, while going to the office by day, also writing fiction and contributing articles on literature, art, architecture and music to a variety of publications.
''Circles,'' his first novel, about ''sex, status, and professional aggressiveness in the Abstract Expressionist set in New York and East Hampton,'' as The New Yorker described it, was published in early 1962, and the next year he left the real estate business to become a full-time writer.
Mr. Friedman's fiction generally resided just outside the mainstream, and though several of his books were published by prominent houses, in the early 1970s he was a founding member of the Fiction Collective, a nonprofit venture run for and by writers who were being increasingly marginalized by commercial publishers.
Mr. Friedman often wrote about the art world, which formed part of his social milieu even when he was a businessman, and he often wrote about writers. In books like ''Almost a Life'' (1975), about a biographer who becomes entwined in the life of his subject; ''The Polygamist'' (1981), about the loves of an Islamic studies professor, with frequent invocations of the tale-weaving Scheherazade; and ''Coming Close'' (1982), a novella and overlapping stories that hew closely to the facts of his own life, he experimented with the divide between fiction and autobiography and examined the relationship between lives and the stories of lives.
He was an early collector of Pollock's work, and he also became a friend. His book ''Jackson Pollock: Energy Made Visible'' is generally credited with being the first Pollock biography. On its publication in 1972, the art critic Hilton Kramer, writing in The New York Times, called it ''a book that everyone interested in the social history of modern art will want to read.''
Bernard Harper Friedman, known as Bob to his friends, was born in Manhattan on July 27, 1926. His father, Leonard, was in the shoe business. His mother, Madeline Copland Uris, whose brothers ran the real estate business, was a cousin of the composer Aaron Copland. He went to both public and private schools in New York, then entered Cornell, where he started in pre-med and ended up studying literature. His college years were interrupted by two years in the Navy, 1944-46.
Mr. Friedman's expansive biography of the sculptor and arts patron Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney was published in 1978. In addition, he wrote short stories, plays and monographs of artists.
In 1948, while he was finishing at Cornell, Mr. Friedman eloped with his second cousin, Abby Noselson. She died in 2003. His brother, the writer Sanford Friedman, died in 2010.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
September 10, 2019
Those interested in Jackson Pollock or the changing art scene in the mid-20th century will be pleased with this book. It is very detailed and not an easy read but is arguably the most complete work of Pollock's life, art, and challenges.
March 21, 2018
My knowledge of 20th century art is limited, and I am not that interested in biographies of painters or sculptors. However, I found this work fascinating. This was recommended by a friend, one of the owners of Stalzy’s Restaurant (where I celebrated my own marriage only a couple of summers ago), and a big fan of "modern" art. I do find Pollack’s work interesting, and have seen a handful of them up close, and I have seen the 1951 documentary about his techniques and style, but I had no intention of delving much further. But, this book swept me up and deposited me in his world. I must repeat myself, with emphasis: FASCINATING. This work, first published in 1972 by a man who had first-hand knowledge of not just Jackson, but his world and acquaintances, is much more than a biography of one artist. It is also a grand tour of the 20th century (mostly American) art world from the inside, and of the characters who peopled it. So many artists, art dealers, and others are part of the narrative, that I ended up spending many hours on-line looking up people and art, some of which I was familiar with, and some of which was completely new to me (I now have a new favorite Mexican artists: David Alfaro Siqueiros). So, if you are interested in 20th c. art history, or even just have a casual desire to better understand what was behind many of the 20th century movements, this is a must read. I was blown away, and had to take an emergency trip to the nearest museum immediately.
August 20, 2021
4.5 stars. Insightful and a lyric work in its own right.
February 17, 2022
Interessantissima biografia di uno degli artisti più importanti e unici del secolo scorso. Degno di nota come la biografia, scritta da un amico di Pollock stesso, si soffermi più sulla sua vita personale, sui dolori e i risultati artistici nel loro contesto storico-culturale che sull'analisi della sua arte come già fatto in numerosi altri libri precedenti, e vedere come parlando del suo tormento personale sembri quasi di aver compreso più di molte analisi più tecniche dei suoi lavori.
December 20, 2018
I borrowed this from my local library. Although Friedman's writing is workmanlike (if not a touch bland), the collection of letters, critical reviews and article snippets add a lot of dimension and make for a thorough psychoanalysis of Pollock.
June 18, 2015
Friedman was a writer, art critic, and friend of Pollock's, and so had the good sense to confine his account of Pollock to the artist's life, work, and environment, while avoiding mythologizing and silly psycho-analytic speculation. (This is not the infamous biography that claims Pollock got the idea for his "drip technique" from childhood memories of watching his father urinate on flat rocks.) The book is Pollock in the studio, not on the analyst's couch, and if it's not the definitive biography, then it's surely an excellent overview.
My only problem with the book is the appearance of the photographs. I read a 1995 republication of the 1972 original book, and it looks as if the photos were originally printed on glossy paper stock. In the 1995 edition the photos are printed on the same matte paper stock as the text, and look as muddy as badly-printed photo-copies. Even worse, Pollock's paintings are printed in black-and-white, which deprives them of a great deal of their magic.
My only problem with the book is the appearance of the photographs. I read a 1995 republication of the 1972 original book, and it looks as if the photos were originally printed on glossy paper stock. In the 1995 edition the photos are printed on the same matte paper stock as the text, and look as muddy as badly-printed photo-copies. Even worse, Pollock's paintings are printed in black-and-white, which deprives them of a great deal of their magic.
April 20, 2016
I almost want to give this one star just because I haven't read an arts Biography that was all that interesting. I'm becoming a misanthrope actually. The story of the individual is boring to me, the story of society is a bit more interesting. The story of the mind, thought, aesthetic, philosophy, is all a little bit more electrifying. Artists, writers, composers, they work alone. Almost always alone, and the act itself is very routine. I found Deleuze's book on Francis Bacon, The Logic of Sensation, to be much more to my liking. The story of an individual is the story of the delusions, the addictions, the friendships, the opinions, the triumphs, etc. that make him human, yes. For me being merely human is pathetic in itself. I want to understand the Spirit. I will be looking for other books on artists by other great writers like Deleuze. I am through with Biography for the time being.
June 4, 2011
As a basic introduction to the life and work of Jackson Pollock, this book disappoints. The author (heavily influenced, it seems, by Erik Erikson's psycho-biography of Martin Luther) favors psychological leaps of faith over considered analysis of Jackson's paintings or their importance in the development of post-World War II American art. Nevertheless, the author does include a large number of quotations from private letters that add color to the subject. Not recommended except for those who simply must read everything about Pollock.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews