Jackson Pollock by Varnedoe, Kirk & Pepe Karmel & Jackson Pollock; Art, Museum Of Modern & Tate Gallery - 1998

E-196: Harry N. Abrams. Very Good in Very Good dust jacket. 1998. First Edition; First Printing. Hardcover. Hardcover. 4to. Harry N. Abrams, New York. 1998. 336 pgs. Illustrated with 425 illustrations, 227 color & 198 duotones and 9 fold outs. First Edition/First Printing. DJ has light shelf-wear present to the DJ extremities. No ownership marks present. Text is clean and free of marks, binding tight and solid, boards very lightly rubbed and worn. The almost mythic Jackson Pollock--a roughshod, ill-mannered, prodigiously ambitious, aggressive, alcoholic, tormented artist--is alive and unwell in this book. But Kirk Varnedoe and Pepe Karmel, the chief curator and adjunct assistant curator, respectively, of the Museum of Modern Art's Department of Painting and Sculpture, also go deeply into Pollock's art in eye-opening ways. This book is the catalog for the retrospective of Pollock's art-shattering oeuvre at the Museum of Modern Art in the fall of 1998 and includes many biographical pictures as well as color plates of Pollock's paintings, from the awkward but earnest early works to the late, great, famous canvasses. Varnedoe's essay, aptly titled "Comet: Jackson Pollock's Life and Work," deftly invites the reader into Pollock's world, starting with his country studio: "The structure, often called a barn, is in fact more like a glorified tool shed." Karmel's essay, "Pollock at Work: The Films and Photographs of Hans Namuth," is a truly groundbreaking exploration of Pollock's technique. Karmel has scrutinized every frame of every piece of film, still or moving, ever taken of Pollock painting. He arrives at absolutely original conclusions: Pollock's all-over swirls of dripped and flung paint often began as figurative works and clearly relate to such all-American stalwarts as Thomas Hart Benton. Karmel makes countless other sharp observations, noting the difference, for example, between fast-looking marks and the slow, deliberate movements with which they were made (and vice versa). His essay is a work of brilliant scholarship, written thrillingly, and it will forever change the way any serious viewer looks at Pollock's paintings. E-196; 1.25 x 11.98 x 10.04 Inches; 336 pages .