Pollock Numbers Paintings For Neutrality

Jackson Pollock eventually abandoned traditional titles for his paintings and started numbering his works instead. His wife, artist Lee Krasner, explained that “he used to give his pictures conventional titles, but now he simply numbers them,” because “numbers are neutral” and “make people look at a picture for what it is, pure painting.” By stripping away titles, Pollock tried to force viewers to focus on the paint itself rather than on any suggested meaning.

Previous Fact Next Fact