Number 1 (Lavender Mist)

Number 1 (Lavender Mist)
Title	Number 1 (Lavender Mist)
Artist	Jackson Pollock
Year	1950
Medium	Oil, enamel and aluminum on canvas
Dimensions	269.5 cm × 540.7 cm
Location	National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

Number 1 (Lavender Mist) is a large-scale painting created in 1950 by Jackson Pollock, associated with the Abstract Expressionism movement and the New York School. The work exemplifies Pollock's signature drip technique developed at his studio in East Hampton, New York and reflects contemporaneous dialogues with artists such as Willem de Kooning, Mark Rothko, Franz Kline, and critics like Clement Greenberg. Conceived amid postwar shifts in American art and institutional support from museums like the Museum of Modern Art and galleries including Peggy Guggenheim's gallery and Sidney Janis Gallery, the painting became a touchstone for mid-20th-century debates about gesture, scale, and the status of painting.

Background and Creation

Pollock produced the painting during a prolific period following his experiments at the Art Students League of New York and interactions with figures such as Thomas Hart Benton, Lee Krasner, Barnett Newman, and Arshile Gorky. Working in his barn-studio in Springs, New York—whose layout echoed studio practices of Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse—he developed a floor-based approach influenced by theatrical and performative precedents seen in the work of Isamu Noguchi and the choreography of Martha Graham. Financial and curatorial attention from collectors like Peggy Guggenheim, David Rockefeller, and institutions including the Whitney Museum of American Art helped secure commissions and exhibitions that contextualized the painting within national and international circuits such as the Venice Biennale.

Composition and Technique

The composition uses layered applications of oil, enamel, and aluminum paint on a monumental canvas laid on the studio floor, an approach comparable to action-based practices by Yves Klein and process-oriented works by Robert Rauschenberg. Pollock employed sticks, hardened brushes, and even basting tools rather than traditional easel-mounted brushes, a working method resonant with experimental techniques seen in the studios of John Cage and Jean Dubuffet. The dense network of dripped and flung paint creates an all-over field without a central focal point, a strategy also adopted by contemporaries such as Ad Reinhardt and Helen Frankenthaler. Chromatic decisions—muted lavenders, grays, creams, and metallics—signal affinities with the palettes of Paul Klee and Georges Seurat even as the facture echoes the gestural emphasis associated with Giacometti and Egon Schiele.

Visual Analysis and Interpretation

Visually, the painting presents a continuous, non-hierarchical surface where rhythm, density, and negative space govern perception—concerns shared with theorists and artists including Josef Albers, Maurice Merleau-Ponty (philosophical aesthetics), and critics like Harold Rosenberg. Interpretations have connected the work to ideas of improvisation akin to jazz innovators such as Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie, theatricality in the manner of Jackson Pollock's contemporaries, and psychoanalytic frameworks associated with theorists like Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacan. Formal readings emphasize the interplay of line, stain, and ground, while contextual analyses link the painting to postwar anxieties and cultural shifts exemplified by events like the Marshall Plan and the geopolitical climate surrounding the Cold War.

Exhibition History

After its completion, the painting entered major public and private displays, traveling through exhibitions at institutions such as the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Guggenheim Museum, and later the National Gallery of Art. It featured in high-profile surveys of American painting, biennials including the Venice Biennale and exhibitions organized by curators associated with the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Tate Modern. Prominent retrospectives that included the work were organized alongside contributions from scholars affiliated with universities like Columbia University, Yale University, and Princeton University.

Reception and Critical Response

Critical reaction ranged from celebration by advocates such as Clement Greenberg and collectors including Armand Hammer to skepticism from commentators aligned with more figurative traditions represented by Norman Rockwell and critics skeptical of abstraction such as Harold Rosenberg (who nonetheless offered influential readings). Newspapers and periodicals like The New York Times, The Nation, Artforum, and Art in America debated its meaning, while academic discourse at institutions including Harvard University and Stanford University produced diverse hermeneutics. The painting influenced subsequent generations of artists, from Helen Frankenthaler and Jasper Johns to Frank Stella and Gerhard Richter, shaping debates about medium specificity promoted by theorists like Michael Fried.

Provenance and Conservation

The work's provenance traverses private collectors, dealers such as Pietro [Piero], galleries including Sidney Janis, and eventual institutional acquisition by the National Gallery of Art. Conservation efforts have involved specialists from conservation departments at the Getty Conservation Institute, the Conservation Center, Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, and museum laboratories collaborating with chemists from universities such as Massachusetts Institute of Technology and University of Delaware. Treatments addressed issues of varnish discoloration, paint consolidation, and support tension, using analytical methods developed in laboratories associated with Smithsonian Institution scientists and conservationists collaborating across museums like the National Gallery, London.

Category:Paintings by Jackson Pollock