The Second World War brought about huge changes in the art world. Europe had been destroyed, ruined and impoverished. It was an unfavourable background for artistic development, so many European artists emigrated to the United States after the war. Paris surrendered its central role to New York at this time, where new trends emerged, along with painters of deserved prestige such as Pollock, Rothko and Warhol.

Jackson Pollock was the creator of a new Abstract technique known as dripping, in which the painter
abandoned the easel and brushes and placed the canvas on the floor, grabbing tubes of paint and squeezing them directly onto it and filling the picture with colour. This system was said to help to channel aggression. In fact Pollock did use his painting as therapy for his alcohol problems. It led to Abstract Expressionism, which was very widespread in the mid-20th century and whose purpose was directly to paint the subconscious.


(c) (R) 2013, MUSMon com S.L.
Text (a) Catalina Serrano Romero

Photo: Jackson Pollock painting, 1950 (a) Author: Hans Namuth Source: National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Whashington, DC; gift of the estate of Hans Namuth