Page 54 - The Documenta issue of World of Art magazine (2002)

POLLOCK

lineage.” in his first attempts “to mine [his own] unconscious as a source of visual images,” (illustrated in many
of the sketches from that period lent by the metropolitan museum of art) what Pollock apparently found was
“a Surrealist battleground on which Picasso and the mexican muralists were fighting it out.” indeed, Pollock’s
early attraction to the mexicans (first to orozco, then Siqueiros) played a key role in initiating his renegotiation
of the opposition between originality and influence.Jackson Pollock’s acutely perceived “rivalry” with Pablo
Picasso has also been well-documented. ample visual evidence exists in both drawings and paintings of the late
thirties and early forties (for example, the moon Woman on view here) to demonstrate the critical impact on his
visual development of key works by Picasso, such as Girl Before a mirror, available in new York. there is little
doubt that Pollock’s agonizing need, first to assimilate, then to renounce Picasso (in the words of his friend, the

52 World of art