Painted in 1949, the work is among the richest and most powerful examples of the famous drip paintings by Pollock, representing an icon from a seminal moment in the development of twentieth century art. It has been featured in several major exhibitions, including retrospective Jackson PollockMoMA of 1967 as well as the 1998 retrospective held at the MoMA and The Tate. Held in the same private collection for over two decades, the work is incredibly fresh for the market. Pollock performed number 31 during a flurry of brilliant artistic activity during late 1949. The work was subsequently exhibited with new Pollock dealer Betty Parsons later that year, where critics described the exhibition as "the best painting I ever did". Issue #31 will tour Los Angeles, where it will be on view April 19-22 before returning to New York before the sale.
Essentially an unknown artist in the early 40s, Pollock began exploring his now infamous drip paint technique in 1948. By the second half of 1949, Pollock found himself catapulted to success due to the popularity of this corpus of works, with paintings acquired by five major museums and 40 major private collections. By the time he created Number 31, Pollock had really mastered the process. Pollock created just thirteen of these drip paintings on paper in 1949, each then mounted on masonite, composition board or canvas. Only eight of these exhibit the lustrous metallic varnish employed in No. 31, one of the group's most complete and opulent compositions.
Jackson Pollock, in full Paul Jackson Pollock, (born January 28, 1912, Cody, Wyoming, United States — died August 11, 1956, East Hampton, New York), American painter who was a leading exponent of Abstract Expressionism, a movement artistic characterized by free associative gestures in painting sometimes referred to as “action painting”. During his lifetime he received widespread publicity and serious recognition for the radical poured, or “drip” technique he used to create his major works. Among his contemporaries, he was respected for his deeply personal and utterly uncompromising commitment to the art of painting. His work and example had an enormous influence on them and on many subsequent art movements in the United States. He is also one of the first American painters to be recognized in his lifetime and afterward as a peer of XNUMXth-century European modern masters.
