Charles Cecil Pollock (December 25, 1902 – May 8, 1988) was an American abstract painter and the eldest brother of artist

Jackson Pollock Paul Jackson Pollock (; January 28, 1912August 11, 1956) was an American painter. A major figure in the abstract expressionist movement, Pollock was widely noticed for his "Drip painting, drip technique" of pouring or splashing liquid household ...

Biography

Pollock was born on December 25, 1902, in Denver, Colorado. He was the eldest of five brothers born to Stella May McClure and LeRoy Pollock. His father, who was born as a McCoy, had taken the surname of his parents' neighbors, who adopted him after his own parents died within a year of each other. In 1926 Pollock moved to New York to study painting. In 1930, he and another brother, Frank Pollock, persuaded their brother Jackson to join them there, effectively launching his own artistic career. In 1935, he moved to Washington, D.C. to work with the

Resettlement Administration The Resettlement Administration (RA) was a New Deal U.S. federal agency created May 1, 1935. It relocated struggling urban and rural families to communities planned by the federal government. On September 1, 1937, it was succeeded by the Farm S ...

. Two years later he took a job as a political cartoonist for the

United Automobile Workers The United Auto Workers (UAW), fully named International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America, is an American labor union that represents workers in the United States (including Puerto Rico) and sou ...

' newspaper in Detroit, Michigan. From 1938 to 1942 Pollock supervised Mural Painting and Graphic Arts for the

Works Progress Administration The Works Progress Administration (WPA; from 1935 to 1939, then known as the Work Projects Administration from 1939 to 1943) was an American New Deal agency that employed millions of jobseekers (mostly men who were not formally educated) to car ...

(WPA)'s

Federal Art Project The Federal Art Project (1935–1943) was a New Deal program to fund the visual arts in the United States. Under national director Holger Cahill, it was one of five Federal Project Number One projects sponsored by the Works Progress Administratio ...

in Michigan. After visiting Michigan State University in 1942, he joined the faculty in the Art Department, where he would teach for the next two decades.

Artistic style

Charles Pollock's career as a painter is sharply divided into two periods. Until the mid 1940s, Pollock followed the

social realist Social realism is work produced by painters, printmakers, photographers, writers, filmmakers and some musicians that aims to draw attention to the real socio-political conditions of the working class as a means to critique the power structures ...

movement, studying under Thomas Hart Benton at the

Art Students League of New York The Art Students League of New York is an art school in the American Fine Arts Society in Manhattan, New York City. The Arts Students League is known for its broad appeal to both amateurs and professional artists. Although artists may study f ...

. Pollock was inspired by the works of the Mexican Mural Renaissance, particularly the works of

Diego Rivera Diego Rivera (; December 8, 1886 – November 24, 1957) was a Mexican painter. His large frescoes helped establish the Mexican muralism, mural movement in Mexican art, Mexican and international art. Between 1922 and 1953, Rivera painted mural ...

and

José Clemente Orozco José Clemente Orozco (November 23, 1883 – September 7, 1949) was a Mexican caricaturist and painter, who specialized in political murals that established the Mexican Mural Renaissance together with murals by Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siquei ...

. During the

Great Depression The Great Depression was a severe global economic downturn from 1929 to 1939. The period was characterized by high rates of unemployment and poverty, drastic reductions in industrial production and international trade, and widespread bank and ...

and the New Deal era of the 1930s, Pollock began working for the Resettlement Administration, alongside fellow Social Realist Ben Shahn, supervising murals through the Midwestern and Southern United States. Pollock was then selected as supervisor of the mural painting and graphic arts division of the Federal Art Project, settling in Detroit, Michigan. Charles Pollock abandoned social realism in the 1940s, and turned to

abstract expressionism Abstract expressionism in the United States emerged as a distinct art movement in the aftermath of World War II and gained mainstream acceptance in the 1950s, a shift from the American social realism of the 1930s influenced by the Great Depressi ...

and color field painting. Some attribute the shift to the influence of his famous brother Jackson, although Charles Pollock painted in a very calm and organized manner unlike Jackson's drip painting style.

Legacy

Pollock had painted public works projects for the

Michigan State University Michigan State University (Michigan State or MSU) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in East Lansing, Michigan, United States. It was founded in 1855 as the Agricultural College of the State o ...

in the early 1940s, when it was then Michigan State College; three of his murals can be seen in the Fairchild Theatre foyer. A collection of Pollock's later abstract expressionist works are housed in Paris, the city where Pollock died in 1988. The

Smithsonian American Art Museum The Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM; formerly the National Museum of American Art) is a museum in Washington, D.C., part of the Smithsonian Institution. Together with its branch museum, the Renwick Gallery, SAAM holds one of the world's lar ...

also houses dozens of works by Charles Pollock.

References

External links

Charles Pollock Papers, 1875–1994

Archives of American Art The Archives of American Art is the largest collection of primary resources documenting the history of the visual arts in the United States. More than 20 million items of original material are housed in the Archives' research centers in Washing ...

Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums, Education center, education and Research institute, research centers, created by the Federal government of the United States, U.S. government "for the increase a ...

Charles Pollock Archives
- https://charlespollockart.com/ The Charles Pollock Archives present the work of American artist Charles Pollock (1902-1988)
Photograph of Pollock family reunion, 1950
Archives of American Art
Jackson Pollock and Charles Pollock in New York, 1930
Archives of American Art {{DEFAULTSORT:Pollock, Charles 1902 births 1988 deaths 20th-century American painters American male painters Abstract expressionist artists Artists from New York (state) Jackson Pollock Federal Art Project artists Works Progress Administration in Michigan Federal Art Project administrators Sibling artists