Untitled I (1945) by Jackson Pollock

This enjoyable piece from Jackson Pollock was completed in around 1945, as one of a number of drawings which featured a variety of mediums. This particular work made use of pastel, gouache and ink on paper.

This abstract piece features several identifiable objects within the composition, though it may take some time to spot them within what is essentially a flurry of paint and expression. This drawing features different media that helps to produce something that is not far off one of his complex paintings, and could easily be considered a study piece for one of them, merging the gap between simpler drawings and the more complex, ambitious paintings that could sometimes be several metres wide. There are specifically two tall figures to be found here which resemble influences of African art, which itself was found in the work of many European artists across the 20th century, both in painting but also sculpture too.

This untitled drawing was featured as part of a major Jackson Pollock exhibition in 2016 which worked hard to educate its visitors about the connection between the artist's work in different mediums. You would have found there drawings and paintings displayed alongside each other, where a clear connection could be visually displayed. Normally this would be from how he tried out new ideas on paper first, before then taking them one step further into oils. This helps to give a better idea of how he came up with his abstract paintings, and that they were actually planned in more detail than many people realise. The exhibition itself was titled Jackson Pollock: A Collection Survey, 1934-1954 and was hosted at MoMA, where a number of his drawings were already to be found within their permanent collection.

This piece can be found in the collection of MoMA, which remains one of the major art galleries of the world and is particularly of interest to those who are most interested in modern art. They themselves focus on the late 19th century up to the end of the 20th century, with European and American artists covered in the greatest detail. Piet Mondrian's Broadway Boogie Woogie, Kazimir Malevich's Suprematist Composition: White on White and Vincent van Gogh's The Starry Night, 1889 are three of the most significant artworks to be found here, but the overall display covers the full breadth of art movements that came about during this innovative period, everything from post-impressionism to cubism, surrealism and the abstract expressionism in which Pollock himself was predominantly involved.