The Myth of the Artist Cowboy

      Birth

      The year Jackson Pollock was born was the year Democrat Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) became the U. S. president. However, the policies of the next Democratic president, Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882–1945), would most directly influence Pollock and the art world.

      Coincidentally, catastrophic maritime disasters fell in both the year of Pollock’s birth and the year of his death. The former tragedy was the sinking of the S. S. Titanic in 1912 during her maiden voyage to New York City; the latter was the sinking of the Andrea Doria in 1956.

      The major news story of the year 1912 was undoubtedly the sinking of the S. S. Titanic during her maiden voyage. In other news, Arizona and New Mexico became states that year. However, the events of 1912 which would influence Pollock most directly included the publishing of C. G. Jung’s The Theory of Psychoanalysis, and the popularity of works by Picasso, such as that year’s The Violin.

      Cody

      On 28 January, 1912, Paul Jackson Pollock was born on Watkins Ranch in Cody, Wyoming. The town is in the northwest area of the state, about fifty miles East of Yellowstone National Park. The state is widely known as ‘the cowboy state’ and was part of the legendary Wild West. When Jackson’s parents moved there, the town had about 500 residents[7].

      Pollock’s earliest experiences were in the atmosphere of myths and romanticising of the Old West. The town of Jackson’s birth was founded only six years before the Pollock family moved there by Colonel William ‘Buffalo Bill’ Cody (1846–1917). He was, and probably still is, the state’s most famous historical figure. Dozens of places in the area bear his name. He was an internationally-known buffalo hunter and showman, a promoter – and even creator – of some of the most legendary images of the ‘Wild West’ culture of the United States. Cody needlessly slaughtered 6,570 buffalo. It was a time when sensitivity to animal rights and macro-views of ecology were generally not yet cultivated.

      At the time of Jackson’s birth, Buffalo Bill was nearing the end of his life. In a unique way Pollock would carry on the spirit of some of Cody’s most exciting pioneering, rebellious and wild images, as well as myths about legendary American cowboys. Although Pollock spent only his first few months as an infant in Cody, he didn’t correct people who presumed he had lived in that truly Western town until he arrived in New York City. The Pollock-like character in Updike’s Pollock-inspired novel Seek my Face (2002) was, “…always telling people he had been a cowboy and it was a lie but his body looked it.”[8]

      Willem de Kooning’s biographers state, “Pollock’s self-destruction had a kind of grandeur that many in the art world respected. Pollock seemed a purely American figure, an authentic visionary, cowboy, and maverick.”[9]

      Fiction

      The Updike title alludes to the verse in Psalm 27: “You speak in my heart and say, ‘Seek my face.’ Your face, Lord, will I seek.” The psalmist and novelist, as well as biographers, want to unveil the image of their subject, yet they know, ultimately, the image will remain a mystery. However, Updike also veils his subject, Jackson Pollock, but doing so only thinly. For example, some names in Updike’s novel are more obvious allusions, such as Onna de Genoog representing Willem de Kooning, or Hackmann for Hofmann. Seamus O’Rourke is nearly an anagram for Mark Rothko. Updike’s main character is named Zack McCoy in the novel. The novel’s name for the artist is an allusion to both the artist’s familiar first name (Jack) and his father’s actual last name (McCoy).

      The Real McCoy

      Apparently only Pollock’s family called him Jack[10], and he signed at least one letter ‘Jacks’[11]. In 1930, Pollock dropped his first name, Paul. Years later his wife, Lee Krasner, would refer to him, even in his presence, as Pollock.

      McCoy was the birth name of Jackson’s father, LeRoy. After the death of LeRoy’s parents, in 1897, he was taken care of by a family named Pollock. Ten days before his twenty-first birthday LeRoy was adopted by the Pollocks. He then took on the name Pollock. Later he asked a lawyer to have his name changed back to McCoy, but doing so would have been too expensive[12].

      Composition with Pouring II, 1943. Oil on canvas, 64.7 × 56.2 cm, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC.

      Male and Female, 1942. Oil on canvas, 184.4 × 124.5 cm, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia.

      Stranger Than Fiction

      “No chaos, damn it!”[13]

Age 38

      While biographies don’t often include fiction in their resources, there are novels, plays, and movies about Pollock which do, with the usual caveats, help weave over certain holes in the veils that partly cover the subject.

      A reviewer for Time Magazine felt the Updike novel was lovely and wise (63). In fact, Updike’s very imaginative portrait of Pollock not only reveals some details more clearly than most serious biographies, but, unfortunately, also collates facts with tabloid rumours concerning alleged homosexuality, affairs and illegitimate children of the artist. More than a few Pollock fans believe the novel, like sensational tabloid headlines, perpetuates unsubstantiated myths unnecessarily. Some feel there is really enough violence, shock and dissipation in the facts, without exaggerating them.

      There is also another highly imaginative novel of Pollock’s life: Top of the World, Ma!, by Michael Guinzburg. The novel presents several of the same events from Pollock’s life as Updike’s novel (30). The title refers to a line spoken by actor Jimmy Cagney in the 1949 movie White Heat. The original line is, “Look at me now, Ma! Top of the world!” The line would certainly have been appropriate for a successful Pollock to say to his own mother at the height of his career.

      The Pollock Family

      Jackson was the youngest of five boys in the family of LeRoy McClure Pollock (1876–1933) and Stella May (1875–1958). His brothers were Charles Cecil (1902–1988), Marvin Jay (1904–1986), Frank Leslie (1907–1994), and Sanford ‘Sande’ LeRoy (1909–1963). An abbreviated family tree is provided.

      According

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