Many people say that artists think outside the box, would you say you were thinking outside the box with the drip technique? In 1947 Pollock first used the process of pouring or dripping paint onto a flat canvas in stages, often alternating weeks of painting with weeks of contemplating before he finished a canvas.
A whole series of paintings—beginning with Full Fathom Five (1947) and Lucifer (1947) and proceeding through Summertime (1948), Number Ten, 1949 (1949), the mural-sized canvases of 1950 such as One, Autumn Rhythm, and Lavender Mist, and the black and white Number Thirty-two, 1950 (1950)—display the infinite variety of effect and expression he achieved through the method of “poured” painting (Encyclopedia Britannica). -Which painting would you say best showed off your drip method best Mural or Cathedral?
In the Mural the Biographical Dictionary of Artists, Andromeda states, “that the process was intensified by the “drip” method of paint splashed over a canvas stretched on the floor but it was seen at its most grandiose in Cathedral.
” They also went on to state that Cathedral was the furthest point to which Pollock’s Abstract Expressionist style could be taken. -When you have spoken of your paintings you stated that you like to place the painting on the floor so you feel more in it, how did you come upon this? It is a known fact that Pollock liked to walk around his painting as he did them.
This movement around the painting also helped give it the name of action painting. It has been stated that he believed that an artist must be a part of his paintings and that the act of painting was as important as the work itself (The Great American History Fact-Finder). -While you are painting what helped you become “unconscious”? It has been said that he used to have to try to tap into unconsciousness when he was painting but he started the “dripping” in his painting he was able to simply let go.
This may have been another reason he laid his aintings on the floor also. Willem de Kooning (April 24, 1904 – March 19, 1997) – Looking into your later paintings in your life, would you say you were going in a different direction or were you in a different state of mind at that time? In his early painting, his work was more surrealist influenced. It was not until later in his life when he started using color to create fluid, which gave it abstracted forms. This you can clearly see in his Woman series. – When you were painting your “Woman” series did you know it would be such a controversial series?
The series Woman I–VI caused a sensation with its violent imagery and impulsive, energetic technique (Encyclopedia Britannica). According to Reader’s Companion to American History, these shocking images de Kooning himself compared to the Venus of Willendorf, were proof of his extraordinary freedom from all strictures. – You did both color paintings and black and white, which paintings did you enjoy making the most? In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History it states that between 1946 and 1949, de Kooning created a series of paintings on canvas and paper that explored biomorphic abstraction with a restricted palette of mostly black and white.
Like his friend Franz Kline, de Kooning used both black and white paint, rather than letting the white of the paper show through. – Tell me about what made you start sculpting? Tell me about some of your favorite sculptures? John Russell states in his article that it was not until he was 65 years old, happened to be staying in Rome and was under pressure by someone who had bought a small foundry that de Kooning began to make sculptures. Quite possibly he would never have begun at all had this combination of circumstances not come about in 1969. ‘Clamdigger” of 1972 and the ”Hostess” of 1973 – both of which have by now achieved archetypal status.
Not only does the hostess have just the fruity and caricatural vivacity for which the subject calls, but the clamdigger comes across as part man, part creature of the mud and the shallows. Yet when we look at these sculptures, we do not feel that an indispensable language is being reinvented, but rather that sculpture is being used by someone whose eye for human behavior is quite fiendishly sharp.
