Jackson Pollock (Icons of America)

Jackson Pollock (Icons of America)

Jackson Pollock (1912–1956) not only put American art on the map with his famous "drip paintings," he also served as an inspiration for the character of Stanley Kowalski in Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire —the role that made Marlon Brando famous. Like Brando, Pollock became an icon of rebellion in 1950s America, and the brooding, defiant persona captured in photographs of the artist contributed to his celebrity almost as much as his notorious paintings did. In the years since his death in a drunken car crash, Pollock's hold on the public imagination has only increased. He has become an enduring symbol of the tormented artist—our American van Gogh. In this highly engaging book, Evelyn Toynton examines Pollock's itinerant and poverty-stricken childhood in the West, his encounters with contemporary art in Depression-era New York, and his years in the run-down Long Island fishing village that, ironically, was transformed into a fashionable resort by his presence. Placing the artist in the context of his time, Toynton also illuminates the fierce controversies that swirled around his work and that continue to do so. Pollock's paintings captured the sense of freedom and infinite possibility unique to the American experience, and his life was both an American rags-to-riches story and a darker tale of the price paid for celebrity, American style. Journalist and novelist Toynton (The Oriental Wife) lends her multifarious talent to the story of the turbulent life of Jackson Pollock...a quotable and inspired contemporary portrait. Toynton's ability to combine sweeping references with didactic narrative separates this account from the stacks of literature on Pollock. -- Publishers Weekly "Toynton's sensitive and incisive book sorts through the records of an imagination out of which so much of contemporary art would go on to assemble itself." -- Times Literary Supplement , April 6, 2012 Evelyn Toynton's work has appeared in Harper's , The Atlantic , The Times Literary Supplement , The New York Times Book Review , and The American Scholar . Her novel Modern Art , loosely based on the story of Lee Krasner and Jackson Pollock, was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. Her most recent novel is The Oriental Wife , published in 2011. She lives in Norfolk, England. Used Book in Good Condition