Untitled

Contemporary Art

c. 1938–41

Jackson Pollock
American, 1912-1956

The late 1930s marked a key period of transition for Jackson Pollock, in which he began to separate himself from the influence of his early mentor, the regionalist painter Thomas Hart Benton. Pollock became engaged in an intense dialogue with the work of the Mexican muralists José Clemente Orozco and David Alfaro Siqueiros; he was inspired by their social commitment and use of primitive, archetypal imagery. The expressionistic style and oblong format of Untitled recall Orozco’s murals at Pomona and Dartmouth Colleges, which Pollock had seen firsthand. The bullfight imagery evokes the work of Pablo Picasso, whose Guernica (1937) made a powerful impression on Pollock when he saw the painting in New York in 1939.

Status: Currently Off View
Department: Contemporary Art

Artist: Jackson Pollock
Title: Untitled
Place: United States (Artist's nationality:)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: 1938–1941
Medium: Oil on linen
Inscriptions: Signed: recto: "Jackson Pollock" (lower right in black paint); not inscribed on verso
Dimensions: Without frame: 56.5 × 127.6 cm (22 1/4 × 50 1/4 in.); 56.6 × 127.7 cm (22 1/4 × 50 1/4 in.)
Credit Line: Major Acquisitions Centennial Fund; estate of Florene May Schoenborn; through prior acquisitions of Mr. and Mrs. Carter H. Harrison, Marguerita S. Ritman, Mr. and Mrs. Bruce Borland, and Mary L. and Leigh B. Block
Reference Number: 1998.522
Copyright: © 2018 Pollock-Krasner Foundation / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Hal Burton, “Jackson Pollock: He Paints As He Pleases,” “Newsday,” December 1, 1950, p. 48.
Parker Tyler, “Hopper/Pollock,” “Art News Annual” 26 (1957), p. 96 (ill.), as “Untitled painting, 1933.”
Dorothy Seiberling, “Baffling U. S. Art: What It Is About,” “Life” (November 9, 1959), p. 71 (color ill.).; “Life International” (December 1959), n.pag. (ill.).
Thomas B. Hess, “Pollock: The Art of a Myth,” “ARTnews” 62, 9 (January 1964), p. 39 (ill.), as “Untitled painting, ca. 1938.”
Francis V. O’Connor, “The Genesis of Jackson Pollock: 1912–1943” (Ph.D. diss., Johns Hopkins University, 1965), p. 189, pl. 55 (ill.). For a general discussion of the influence of José Clemente Orozco on Pollock, see pp. 176–190.
_____, “The Genesis of Jackson Pollock: 1912 to 1943,” “Artforum” 5, 9 (May 1967), p. 23, fig. 8 (ill.), as “Painting.”
Irving Sandler, “The Triumph of American Painting: A History of Abstract Expressionism” (Praeger Publishers, 1970), p. 105, fig. 8-3 (ill.), as “Painting, c. 1938.”
Judith Wolfe, “Jungian Aspects of Pollock’s Imagery,” “Artforum” 11, 3 (November 1972), p. 66, fig. 2 (ill.), as “Painting, c. 1938.”
Francis V. O’Connor and Eugene Victor Thaw, eds., “Jackson Pollock: A Catalogue Raisonné of Paintings, Drawings, and Other Works” (Yale University Press, 1978), vol. 1, cat. 61 (ill.); vol. 4, fig. 21 (photo), as “[Composition with Donkey Head].”
Daniel Wheeler, “Art Since Mid-Century: 1945 to the Present” (Vendome Press/Rizzoli International, 1991), pp. 41, 43, fig. 64 (color ill.), as “Composition with Donkey Head.”
Stephen Polcari, “Review: Siqueiros and Pollock,” “Burlington Magazine” 138, 1117 (April 1996), p. 274, as “Composition with Donkey Head.”
Richard Kalina, “Pollock, Orozco and Siqueiros at Washburn,” “Art in America” 86, 9 (September 1998), p. 129, as “Untitled (Composition with Donkey Head).”
“Annual Report 1998–99” (Art Institute of Chicago, 1999), p. 19, as “Untitled (Composition with Donkey Head).”
Robert Storr, “A Piece of the Action,” in Kirk Varnedoe and Pepe Karmel, eds., “Jackson Pollock: New Approaches” (Museum of Modern Art/Harry N. Abrams, 1999), p. 50, fig. 11 (ill.), as “Untitled [Composition with Donkey Head].”
Anthony White, ed., “Jackson Pollock’s ‘Blue Poles,’” exh. cat. (National Gallery of Australia, 2002), p. 20 (color ill.), as “Untitled (Composition with Donkey Head), 1938–41.”
Sarah Burns, Teresa A. Carbone, Annelise K. Madsen, and Sarah Kelly Oehler, America after the Fall: Painting in the 1930s, First edition, exh. cat. (Chicago: The Art Institute of Chicago, 2016), 172-173 (color ill.), 174, 176-177 (color ill.), 186.
Barbara Haskell, ed., with additional essays by Mark A. Castro, Dafne Cruz Porchini, Renato González Mello, Marcela Guerrero, Andrew Hemingway, Anna Indych-López, Michael K. Schuessler, Gwendolyn Dubois Shaw, Shipu Wang, and James Wechsler, Vida Americana: Mexican Muralists Remake American Art, 1925-1945, exh. cat. (New York: Whitney Museum of American Art; New Haven: Yale University Press, 2020), 162, 163, cat. 109 (color ill.)
Cécile Debray, Joanne Snrech, Choghakate Kazarian, Rubén Gallo, and Orane Stalpers, Jackson Pollock: The Early Years, exh. cat. (Paris: Musée national Picasso-Paris, 2024), 90-91 (color ill.), 194.

London, Marlborough Fine Art, “Jackson Pollock,” June 1961, cat. 26, as “Painting, c. 1938.”
Kunstverein für die Rheinlande und Westfalen, Düsseldorf Kunsthalle, “Jackson Pollock,” Sept. 5–Oct. 8, 1961, cat. 35, as “Painting, c. 1938.”
Kunsthaus Zürich, “Jackson Pollock,” Oct. 24–Nov. 29, 1961, cat. 35, as “Painting, c. 1938.”
Rome, Marlborough Galleria d’Arte, “Jackson Pollock,” Oct.–Nov. 1962; Milan, Toninelli Arte Moderna, Nov.–Dec. 1962, cat. 18, as “Painting, c. 1938.
Stockholm, Moderna Museet, “Jackson Pollock,” Feb. 27–Apr. 15, 1963, cat. 35, as “Painting, 1938.”
New York, Marlborough-Gerson Gallery, “Jackson Pollock,” Jan. 14–Feb. 15, 1964, cat. 40, as “Painting, c. 1938.”
East Hampton, NY, Guild Hall Museum, “Krasner/Pollock: A Working Relationship,” Aug. 8–Oct. 4, 1981; New York, Grey Art Gallery and Study Center, New York University, Nov. 3–Dec. 12, 1981, cat. 20, as “Composition with Donkey Head.”
Munich, ACA Gallery, “Jackson Pollock,” Sept. 1993, cat. 1, as “Composition with Donkey Head.”
Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, “Siqueiros/Pollock, Pollock/Siqueiros,” Sept. 30–Dec. 3, 1995, no cat. no., as “Composition with Donkey Head.”
Houston, Museum of Fine Arts, “Jackson Pollock: Defining the Heroic,” Mar. 2–June 30, 1996, cat. 5.
New York, Joan T. Washburn Gallery, “Pollock, Orozco and Siqueiros,” Jan. 21–Feb. 28, 1998.
Chicago, Art Institute of Chicago, America after the Fall: Painting in the 1930s, June 5–Sept. 18, 2016; Paris, Établissement public du musée d‘Orsay et du musée de l‘Orangerie, Oct. 11, 2016–Jan. 30, 2017; London, Royal Academy of Arts, Feb. 25–June 4, 2017.
Shanghai Museum, Pathways to Modernism: American Art, 1865–1945, Sept. 28, 2018–Jan. 6, 2019.
New York, Whitney Museum of American art, Vida Americana: Mexican Muralists Remake American Art, 1925-1945, Feb. 17-May 17, 2020, cat. 109; San Antonio, McNay Art Museum, June 25-Oct. 4, 2020 (extended at the Whitney until Jan. 31, 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. McNay Art Museum portion of the tour was canceled.
Paris, Musée national Picasso-Paris, Jackson Pollock: The Early Years, Oct. 15, 2024-Jan. 19, 2025, cat. 63.

The artist; by descent to Lee Krasner Pollock, New York, 1956; bequeathed to the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, 1984 [according to email of Jul. 31, 2007 from Joan Washburn; photocopy in curatorial file]; sold through Joan T. Washburn Gallery, New York, to the Art Institute, 1998.

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