Jackson Pollock - drawings on Japanese Paper
Jackson Pollock - Japanese Paper and Mulberry Paper techniques
The purpose of this paper is to examine a particular set of Jackson Pollock’s works, drawings on Japanese paper that he did mainly in 1951.
In 1950 and 1951, Jackson Pollock began using a technique of pouring black ink and coloured ink on Japanese paper and Mulberry paper (note - Japanese paper is not defined by the material it was made from although there are some references to Rice paper; Mulberry paper, produced in Japan, is also known as Kozo paper, made from the Mulberry bush.)
There were 22 of these works exhibited as part of an exhibition of his other drawings on paper called Jackson Pollock: Drawing into Painting, an exhibition of 85 drawings and 5 paintings, February 4 through March 16, 1980, Museum of Modern Art, New York City.
Jackson Pollock: Drawing into Painting - exhibition catalogue, Museum of Modern Art, 1980 by Bernice Rose:
https://assets.moma.org/documents/moma_catalogue_2020_300062621.pdf
Exhibition information including installation images:
https://www.moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/2020
Press release:
https://assets.moma.org/documents/moma_press-release_327267.pdf
Checklist of all of the drawings in the exhibit:
https://assets.moma.org/documents/moma_master-checklist_327266.pdf
Other exhibits that concentrated on his drawings on paper:
The Guggenheim Museum, New York City exhibition: No Limits, Just Edges: Jackson Pollock Paintings on Paper, May 26 to September 29, 2006 (do not have a listing of the works in the exhibition)
A touring exhibit called Jackson Pollock: Works on Paper, sponsored by the Museum of Modern Art, New York City, February 1968 to February 1969 (but not shown at the Museum of Modern Art).
A catalogue was produced for the exhibit (by the same author as the 1980 exhibition catalogue for the Museum of Modern Art): Jackson Pollock: Works on Paper by Bernice Rose, published by The Museum of Modern Art (do not have a listing of the works in the exhibition).
An excerpt from the 1980 exhibition catalogue -Jackson Pollock: Drawing into Painting - related to producing the drawings on Japanese paper and Mulberry paper:
“At the same time, Pollock was at work on a number of brilliantly colored drawings in black and colored inks poured on thin Japanese paper (rice paper). It is uncertain which he began first, the poured ink drawings or the black-and-white canvases. Possibly the small works were a relief from the physical labor of the larger works or provided an important point of reference to actual color. Pollock's use of painting and drawing modes continued to be highly complex, and traditional drawing techniques transposed into new contexts continued to play an important role through 1952. Direct pouring was apparently a new approach to traditional wash technique: the spread of the medium into absorbent paper had the effect of a large, soft brush. Several small experimental canvases of 1950, in which the puddled marks were scraped down to a transparent veil, anticipated this work, as did the stained duco washes of other canvases.
By 1951 Pollock had stopped using duco on paper and was pouring, sinking, and staining ink into rice paper. The more painterly and coloristic effects of 1951 appeared in the stained washes of these works on paper. Working with the sheets of paper stacked one on another (possibly a bulk lot, or a package unwrapped straight from the supply store), Pollock began by pouring and spattering ink onto the first sheet. The paper formed an absorbent membrane through which the ink bled onto the sheets below, leaving less substantial traces for the same marks as they were absorbed by underlying sheets. Pollock would then remove the first sheet, sometimes modify that, then modify the second sheet, sometimes reversing it back to front to form a mirror image (the image could be seen on both sides of the sheet because the paper was absorbent), and work further on that. Sometimes Pollock removed the sheet from the stack before reworking, sometimes he did not, so the modifications became part of the sheet below, forming a third variation of the image, which might then also be elaborated.
There are two series on mulberry paper, one in which the sheet is slightly larger than the other. One group within the larger series begins with a figurative work in sepia ink and continues with additions of black and colored inks to subsequent sheets (a continuous sequence of six has been established for CR 811* 828+, 827+, 815§, 81611, and 826**). In all of these Pollock plays back and forth between figuration and nonfiguration, sometimes deliberately making the connections between marks that will delineate figures, sometimes simply allowing a free configuration of more painterly marks. In another series CR 812++ is a first sheet; CR 819++ is a mirror image of CR 812, with additions of poured sepia ink; and CR 820§§ is a third sheet, turned recto-verso from bottom to top, 6 with further elaborations? This sort of deliberately induced accident was a new kind of stimulus to Pollock, a new kind of "automatic" or hallucinatory drawing in which the remnants of one image suggested others. Sometimes the second or third sheet is more elaborated, in other cases, it is less material. In both cases the works acquire a new kind of ambiguity that is both optical and metaphysical.
There is no longer simply an ambiguity of retinal impressions or unresolved or deliberately absent figuration as in single works, but an ambiguity of presence and identity is created among the works themselves— a dialogue between possibility and choice. (This works best when he uses two or three sheets; it is not as strong when the work bleeds through six or more sheets because the traces are not clear when carried beyond three sheets.) Physically these drawings are characterized by their dematerialization of medium and their airy spaciousness. Pollock's use of medium and his handling had been consistently physical until these wash drawings. With them the only reference to the physical quality of his previous work is in the density of soaked color as color, the way in which one wash— or puddle— of color overlays another, and the way edges meet, establishing a sense of discrete physical identity in spite of actual flatness.
These are among Pollock's most painterly works, for their remarkable color more than for anything else. They are a prelude to the 1952 canvases in which the poured and puddled color-wash technique is transposed and the inherent "spreading" quality of the stain takes over. Staining ink into paper had created the same kind of mark in drawing as it had in painting. The way in which the mark remains at once discrete and painterly (and often these marks are, as in the paintings, juxtaposed with lines that are deliberately linear and directional ) may be clearer in these drawings.”
A list of the drawings shown at the Jackson Pollock: Drawing into Painting exhibition that are on Japanese paper and Mulberry paper.
https://www.moma.org/momaorg/shared/pdfs/docs/press_archives/5798/releases/MOMA_1980_0001_1.pd
(note: the CR# relates to the listing in Jackson Pollock: A Catalogue Raisonné of Paintings, Drawings, and Other Works (Yale University Press, 1978).
JAPAN PAPER
55. Untitled, (c. 1950). Ink on Japan paper, 17 1/2 x 22 1/4" (44.4 x 56.5 cm). Private collection, New York. CR# 801. (Photo: Baker 23807-9). (Exhibition catalogue page 63)
56. Untitled, (c. 1950). Ink on Japan paper, 17 1/2 x 22 1/4" (44.5 x 56.5 cm). Private collection, New York. CR# 802. (Photo: Allan, Syracuse, New York). (Exhibition catalogue page 61)
57. Untitled, (c. 1950). Ink on Japan paper, 17 3/4 x 22 1/8" (45 x 56 cm). Collection Mr. and Mrs. Jay R. Braus, New York. CR# 808. (Photo: Sunami 14,973-A). (Exhibition catalogue page 60)
58. Untitled. 1951. Ink on Japan paper, 17 1/2 x 22 1/4" (44.4 x 56.5 cm). Collection Mr. Morton Feldman, New York. CR# 846. (Photo: Petersen 2614). (Exhibition catalogue page 64)
59. Untitled. 1951. Ink on Japan paper, 17 1/2 x 22" (44.5 x 55.9 cm). Collection Alfonso A. Ossorio, New York. CR# 845. (Photo: MMA 12583). (Exhibition catalogue page 65)
There are a number of drawings in Pollock's oeuvre in 1951 in which the image has bled through from one sheet to another, and the artist reworked the undersheet, sometimes turning the sheet recto/verso to create a mirror image, sometimes turning the sheet upside down as well. These drawings are indicated in sequence, the top sheet first. There are two sizes, one smaller and one larger.
MULBERRY PAPER
Sequence of three drawings:
60. Untitled. 1951. Black and colored inks on mulberry paper, 24 1/4 x 34" (61.5 x 86.3 cm). Private collection, Pennsylvania. CR# 825. (Photo: Clements 23-807-2). (Exhibition catalogue page 80A)
61. Untitled. (1951). Black and colored inks on mulberry paper, 24 3/8 x 34 1/4" (61.9 x 87 cm). The Museum of Modern Art, New York, The Joan and Lester Avnet Collection. CR# 823. (Photo: Sunami 14,974). (Bleed, reworking of cat. no. 61) (Exhibition catalogue page 80B)
62. Untitled. 1951. Black and colored inks on mulberry paper, 24 1/2 x 34" (62.2 x 86.3 cm). Collection Jackson Friedman, New York. CR# 824. (Photo: Petersen 2612). (Bleed, mirror image of cat. no. 61). (Exhibition catalogue page 80C)
The following seems to be a single sheet:
63. Untitled. (1951). Ink on mulberry paper, 24 1/4 x 34 1/4" (61.6 x 87 cm). Collection Alexander F. Milliken, New York. CR# 810. (Photo: Sunami 14,987). (Exhibition catalogue page 78)
Sequence of three drawings:
64. Untitled. (1951). Ink on mulberry paper, 25 x 39 1/2" (63.5 x 100.3 cm). Collection Robert Elkon, New York. CR# 812. (Photo: eeva-inkeri 730582). (Exhibition catalogue page 74A)
65. Untitled. 1951. Black and sepia ink on mulberry paper, 24 7/8 x 39" (63.2 x 99 cm). Private collection, Maryland. CR# 819. (Photo: Clements 55-294). (Bleed, mirror image, reworking of cat. no. 65). (Exhibition catalogue page 74B)
66. Untitled. (1951). Black and sepia ink touched with green gouache on mulberry paper, 25 x 39" (63.5 x 99 cm) (irregular). Collection Lee Krasner Pollock, New York. CR# 820. (Photo: Sunami 14,971). (Bleed, reworking of cat. no. 66 turned recto/verso, upside down). (Exhibition catalogue page 74C)
Sequence of six drawings:
67. Untitled. 1951. Sepia ink on mulberry paper, 24 7/8 x 39 1/8" (63.2 x 99.4 cm). Collection Ms. Gayle Potter, New York. CR# 811. (Photo: Sunami 14,985). (Exhibition catalogue page 68)
68. Untitled. 1951. Black and colored inks and gouache on mulberry paper, 24 x 38 1/2" (60.9 x 97.7 cm). Collection Dr. and Mrs. Edgar Berman, Maryland. CR# 828. (Photo: Suter). (Bleed, mirror image, reworking of cat. no. 68). (Exhibition catalogue page 69)
69. Untitled. 1951. Black and colored inks and gouache on mulberry paper, 25 1/2 x 39 1/2" (64.8 x 100.3 cm). Collection Mrs. Martin Janis, Sherman Oaks, California. CR# 827. (Photo: Thompson). (Bleed, mirror image, reworking of cat. no. 69). (Exhibition catalogue page 70)
70. Number 7, 1951. 1951. Black and colored inks on mulberry paper, 28 x 42" (71.1 x 106.7 cm). Private collection, San Diego, California. CR# 815. (Photo: MMA 12587). (Bleed, reworking of cat. no. 69). (Exhibition catalogue page 71)
71. Number 8, 1951. 1951. Black and colored inks, drops of white oil paint on mulberry paper, 24 3/4 x 39" (63 x 99 cm). The Leonard Brown Family Collection, Springfield, Massachusetts. CR# 816. (Photo: MMA 12582). (Bleed, reworking of cat. no. 71). (Exhibition catalogue page 72)
72. Number 18. 1951. 1951. Ink and colored inks on mulberry paper, 24 7/8 x 38 1/4" (63.2 x 97.2 cm). Private collection, New York. CR# 826. (Photo: Sunami 14,986). (Bleed, reworking of cat. no. 72). (Exhibition catalogue page 73)
A pair of drawings:
73. Untitled. (.1951). Ink on mulberry paper, 25 x 38 3/4" (63.5 x 98.4 cm). Collection Lee Krasner Pollock, New York. CR# 821. (Photo: E.V. Thaw & Co.). (Exhibition catalogue page 66)
74. Untitled. (1951). Ink and colored inks on mulberry paper, 25 x 39" (63.5 x 99 cm). Collection Ms. Susannah Gallagher, Westport, Connecticut. CR# 822. (Photo: Keller 4024). (Bleed, reworking of cat. no. 74). (Exhibition catalogue page 67)
One of a pair:
75. Untitled. 1951. Black and colored inks on mulberry paper, 24 3/4 x 39" (62.8 x 99.1 cm). Collection Mr. and Mrs. Richard E. Lang, Medina, Washington. CR// 813. (Note: CR# 814, Collection National Gallery of Scotland, not in exhibition, is the second sheet). (Photo: Sunami 14,988). (Exhibition catalogue page 79)
One of a pair:
76. Untitled. 1951. Ink on mulberry paper, 24 3/4 x 39 1/4" (62.8 x 99.7 cm). Collection Robert and Jane Meyerhoff, Phoenix, Maryland. CR# 817. (Note: CR# 818, Collection Virginia Wright Foundation, Seattle, Washington, not in exhibition, is the second sheet). (Photo: Mettee 26237D, Baltimore, Maryland). (Exhibition catalogue page 84)
Following are example images that were found on the internet showing some of the work that was shown in the Jackson Pollock: Drawing into Painting Exhibition (and others):
1) Sequence of 3 drawings
Title: Untitled
Year: 1951
Media: black and colored inks on Japanese mulberry paper
Size: 24 1/2 by 34 in. 62.2 by 86.4 cm
CR# 825
Catalogue# 60 (Exhibition catalogue page 80A)
Source:
Title: Untitled
Year: 1951
Media: black and colored inks on Japanese mulberry paper
Size: 24 3/8 x 34 3/8" (62.1 x 87.3 cm)
CR# 823
Catalogue# 61 (Exhibition catalogue page 80B)
Source:
https://www.moma.org/collection/works/34857?locale=en
Title: Untitled
Year: 1951
Media: black and colored inks on Japanese mulberry paper
Size: 24 3/8 x 34 3/8" (62.1 x 87.3 cm)
CR# 824
Catalogue# 62 (Exhibition catalogue page 80C)
Source:
2) Sequence of 2 drawings
Title: Untitled
Year: 1951
Media: black and colored ink on mulberry paper
Size: 24 3/4 × 39 1/4 in. (63 × 99.7 cm
CR# 813
Catalogue# 75 (Exhibition catalogue page 79)
Source:
https://frisson.site.seattleartmuseum.org/the-collection/jackson-pollock-untitled-1951/
Title: Untitled
Year: 1951
Media: black and colored ink on mulberry paper
Size: 24 3/4 × 39 1/4 in. (63 × 99.7 cm
CR# 814
Catalogue# not shown at exhibition
Source:
https://www.nationalgalleries.org/art-and-artists/1452
3) Sequence of 6 drawings: showing fourth of 6 sheets
Title: Number 7
Year: 1951
Media: ink and gouache on Japanese paper
Size: 24 7/8 x 39 1/8 in
CR# 815
Catalogue# 70 (Exhibition catalogue page 71)
Source:
https://www.mutualart.com/Artwork/Number-7/7B704950C3E4A4C2
4) Sequence of three drawings (showing second and third sheets)
Title: Untitled
Year: 1951
Media: black and sepia ink on Mulberry paper
Size: 24 7/8 x 39" (63.2 x 99 cm)
CR#819
Catalogue# 65 (Exhibition catalogue page 74B)
Source:
https://www.nga.gov/collection/art-object-page.152773.html
Title: Untitled
Year: 1951
Media: Black and sepia ink on Mulberry paper
Size: 25 x 39" (63.5 x 99 cm)
CR# 820
Catalogue# 66 (Exhibition catalogue page 74C)
Source:
https://www.artsy.net/artwork/jackson-pollock-untitled-35
5) Individual drawing
Title: Untitled
Year: 1951
Media: Ink on Japanese paper
Size: 17 1/2 × 22 1/4 in | 44.5 × 56.5 cm
CR# 846
Catalogue# 58 (Exhibition catalogue page 64)
Source:
https://www.artsy.net/artwork/jackson-pollock-untitled-23
6 )Individual drawing
Title: Untitled
Year: 1951
Media: Ink on Japanese paper
Size: 17 1/2 × 22 in | 44.5 × 56 cm
CR# 845
Catalogue# 59 (Exhibition catalogue page 65)
Source:
7) Sequence of two drawings (top sheet shown)
Title: Untitled
Year: 1951
Media: ink on Mulberry paper
Size: 24 3/4 x 39 1/4" (62.8 x 99.7 cm)
CR# 817
Catalogue# 76 (Exhibition catalogue page 84)
Source:
https://art237arroyos.blogspot.com/2012/05/jackson-pollock-mini-research-paper.html
8) Individual drawing
Title: Untitled
Year: 1951
Media: Ink on rice paper mounted on paper
Size: 24 3/8 x 34½ in
CR# 810
Catalogue# 63 (Exhibition catalogue page 78)
Source:
https://www.mutualart.com/Artwork/Untitled/856AD16057FE7B6D?login=1
8) Sequence of two drawings (second sheet shown)
Title: Untitled
Year: 1951
Media: black and colored inks on rice paper
Size: 25 x 39 in. 63.5 x 99.1 cm
CR#822
Catalogue# 74 (Exhibition catalogue page 67)
https://www.mutualart.com/Artwork/UNTITLED/CAC6787ACE7C15C5
9) Sequence of two (?) drawings - (no catalogue information found)
Title: Untitled
Year: 1951
Media: black and blue ink on Japanese paper
Size: 24 15/16 x 39 3/16 in. (63.3 x 99.5 cm)
CR# unknown
Catalogue# not shown at exhibition
Source:
https://www.nga.gov/collection/art-object-page.66676.html
Title: Untitled
Year: 1951
Media: black and blue ink on Japanese paper
Size: 24 15/16 x 39 3/16 in. (63.3 x 99.5 cm)
CR# unknown
Catalogue# not shown at exhibition
Source:
https://www.nga.gov/collection/art-object-page.66677.html
