Jackson breaks the ice

Andrew Forge

  • Jackson Pollock: An American Saga by Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith
    Barrie and Jenkins, 934 pp, £19.95, March 1990, ISBN 0 7126 3866 0
  • Abstract Expressionism by David Anfam
    Thames and Hudson, 216 pp, £5.95, August 1990, ISBN 0 500 20243 5
  • Night Studio: A Memoir of Philip Guston by Musa Mayer
    Thames and Hudson, 256 pp, £8.95, February 1991, ISBN 0 500 27633 1

It was a small world that New York artists shared in the Thirties, defined by philistine hostility or Francophile indifference. The Great Depression that had made so much useless made the uselessness of art irrefutable and absurd. Then came the miracle of the WPA. Painters were paid just to paint.

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