Article - Retiring In His Second Home

Article for newspaper – Paul Jackson Pollock

Retiring At His Second Home

His most famous paintings were during the ‘drip period’. “Is he the greatest living painter in the United States?” In his 70’s, slowing down his devotion in art and living in Malaysia is what we have heard as artist Jackson Pollock has planned to live in Malaysia as his second home. Targeting a more secluded area for his house site which provides him with more privacy and peaceful environment. It was learned that he enjoy the view of the nature and the sounds of the woods. Introducing the artist Paul Jackson Pollock, the influential painter and a major force in the abstract expressionist movement.

Having a look through artist Jackson Pollock’s biography, he was born on January 28, 1912 in Cody, Wyoming. He is the youngest of five sons who then grew up in Arizona and California. Later he underwent for study at Los Angeles’ Manual Art High School in 1928. A few years later, he left for New York where he studied under Thomas Hart Benton at the Art Students League. In these years, his art was mainly influenced by Jose Clemente Orozco and Diego Rivera who are Mexican muralists.

Talking about when he was a young artist, his first solo show was held at Peggy Guggenheim’s Art of This Century gallery, New York, which earned him a Guggenheim contract that lasted him 4 years until 1947. Pollock married his soul mate Lee Krasner in October 1945 and in November they moved to Springs on Long Island, New York. It was a typical of the area, a wood-frame house with a nearby barn that was a studio Pollock made for himself. It was there at that barn where he perfected the technique of working instinctively with liquid. At the peak of his fame, Pollock unexpectedly abandoned the drip style. After 1951, his work was in darker in color, often only black. Soon they had moved to a more commercial gallery where his new paintings were in great demand from collectors.

Now that he is in Malaysia, he seeks for retirement in a new climate, a new house and a new environment. A tropical weather and a tropical house, in the woods he prefer the site as the surroundings. Creating his own tropical interior style with a more functionable purpose to assist in him in moving around the house. A more unique style will be excellent as the artist himself like unique. For the other space, it is preferably to shrink the studio size as now he only does smaller scale paintings. As for the studio and the bedroom, more privacy would be very much helpful for him to concentrate in drawings and enjoy his sleeping time. Bedroom size is to expand as preferences.

In anyway, he was generally recognized as the most important figure in the most important movement in American paintings. Thou he no longer paints for collectors, now he paints for himself and to held as his own collections. It is a pleasure to welcome your retirement in Malaysia.