Untitled (Figure Composition)
Jackson Pollock American
Not on view
Here, Pollock has created a hybrid of the human body and a bird skeleton, suggesting an urge for flight. A hooded figure at right lends the scene a subtly religious or cultic atmosphere. The artist’s sketchbooks of the early 1940s contain a number of original compositions that show him working through the influence of Mexican muralists and Surrealism. The scenes of ritual and transformation that appear in his art at this time draw upon José Clemente Orozco’s distinctive combination of Mesoamerican myths and iconic symbols of industrialization. Pollock’s use of these motifs was also inflected by his entrance into Jungian psychotherapy in 1939; drawing was a component of his treatment.
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