Page 61 - Contemporary Art and Old Masters

Jackson Pollock,
Mural, 1943. Oil and casein on canvas, 242.9 x 603.9 cm. University of
Iowa Stanley Museum of Art, Gift of Peggy Guggenheim, 1959.6 © 2020
The Pollock-Krasner Foundation/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

of easel painting with that of mural production, all while
further experimenting with abstraction. Pollock stretched
the enormous canvas, even tearing down a wall in his
downtown apartment to make room to work on it upright.
As he stated in a 1950 interview with William Wright,
“[T]he direction that painting seems to be taking here is
away from the easel - into some sort of wall painting.... ”

Mural would later be donated by Guggenheim to the
University of Iowa, Iowa City, along with several other
Jackson Pollock standing in front of Mural (1943) at the studios of Vogue
works, following Guggenheim’s relocation to Venice in
magazine, ca. 1947. Photo: Herbert Matter, courtesy of the Department of
1947. It now resides in the collection of Iowa’s Stanley Special Collections, Stanford University Libraries
Museum of Art.
The painting was the subject of an extensive research
and treatment project begun in 2012 by the Getty
Conservation Institute and the J. Paul Getty Museum,
Los Angeles. It was during this analysis that the legend
that Mural had been painted for the most part in a single
night was confirmed to be untrue, among other findings.
While certain elements of the composition were laid
down in an initial burst of activity, the final work was
completed over an extended period of time.

In conjunction with this exhibition, the Guggenheim
Museum concurrently presents Knotted, Torn, Scattered:
Sculpture after Abstract Expressionism, which considers
Jackson Pollock, Mural, 1943. Installation view, Away from the Easel:
the legacy of Pollock’s groundbreaking Mural through Jackson Pollock’s Mural, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York,
works by Guggenheim collection artists from the 1960s October 3, 2020–September 19, 2021. Photo: David Heald
and early 1970s.

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