Jackson Pollock

Title: Action Jackson
Authors: Jan Greenberg and Sandra Jordan
Illustrator: Robert Andrew Parker
(All works of art by Jackson Pollock)
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Copyright: 2002
ISBN: 0-7613-2770-3
Genre: Fiction based on biography
Library Location: Amarillo Public Library

“energy and motion made visible.” Jackson Pollock


Summary: Jackson Pollock (1912-1956) was born in Cody, Wyoming, the youngest of 5 sons born to a farmer/land surveyor and his wife. The book, Action Jackson, allows readers to “watch” Jackson Pollock create one of his huge action paintings from start to finish. It depicts a couple of weeks in the painter’s life during one of his most productive periods, the spring and summer of 1950. Jackson spreads out his large canvas on the floor of a barn behind his rural farmhouse, smoothes it out with his hands and then takes time to sit and contemplate what he’ll do next. Finally, Jackson chooses a stick, dips it in house paint and using his whole body, swoops and leaps like dancer, splattering patterns of color around his canvas.

Personal Response: Action Jackson is a delightful book that shows Jackson sitting on a grassy sand dune contemplating the movements of tall grass waving in the breeze and watching sea gulls swoop in patterns through the air before he begins his painting. As a landscape painter, I also spend time contemplating nature. I especially enjoy observing water, being transfixed by its rhythmic movement, looking through its transparency and gazing at the undulating reflections of things around it. For me it’s vitally important to take the time to closely observe and absorb the sights, sounds and feelings that attract me. Only then do I have something personal and original to say in my own work.

Suggested Use in Classroom: The book, Action Jackson, includes several very small color reproductions of his paintings, but only one that is of sufficient size to observe in any depth and detail. Considering that Jackson’s paintings are very, very large, I feel that much of their effect is lost on the viewer of the small reproductions. So in my classroom I would use oversize adult books with large color reproductions, photos of his work found on the Internet or, even better, project several images of his paintings by turn on the wall close to actual size. I would elicit my student’s verbal reactions to Jackson’s paintings and his method of working and we would discuss a number of his works, noting their similarities and differences. After these activities, I think a fun and educational project for my students would be to create a “group painting”. They would spread a large piece of canvas, paper or perhaps a king-size sheet on the floor (or on the ground outside) and by turns drip, pour and spatter layers of paint to create a class “action painting”. As a class, we would decide on our goals for the piece before beginning the work, and I would require each student to explain his or her thought processes before and during painting. Finally, we would consider as a class whether the painting met our expectations.