Jackson Pollock (Artists in Their Time Series) ANNOTATION
Discusses the life, art, and legacy of the artist Jackson Pollock. Includes a timeline linking the events in his life with world events.
FROM THE CRITICS
Children's Literature - Lesley Lee Francis
The series of "Artists in Their Time" portrays some of the most influential twentieth-century artists, exploring their work in relation to their life and what was happening in the world around them. Pollock, an abstract Expressionist painter who lived from 1912 to 1956, led a somewhat troubled and ultimately tragic life. For classroom use, the treatment of his painting technique extends to such influences as Cubism, Surrealism, and other modern movements. While the book discusses the life, art, and legacy of Pollock and provides a useful timeline linking his life with world events, the treatment is at times unfocused. Black-and-white photos of the artist are accompanied by color reproductions of too few of his canvases; his unhappy life, that included his marriage to Lee Krasner, serious bouts of depression and alcoholism, and his violent death get lost in a text that tries to cover too many other contemporary figures. 2003, Franklin Watts/Scholastic,
School Library Journal
Gr 5-8-Slim series entries that examine two 20th-century American artists. Pollock lived a sometimes troubled and ultimately tragic life, despite his success in popularizing revolutionary methods of creating art. Oliver does not sugarcoat or contradict the realities of alcoholism and frequent reclusiveness. Her objective, accessible treatment makes the abstract expressionist movement and Pollock's innovations understandable to young readers. There are numerous black-and-white photos of Pollock and his contemporaries and color reproductions of his work. Thomson outlines the scope of O'Keeffe's life and work, and frequently points out the influences one had on the other, but fails to give readers much sense of the woman herself. Sidebar maps of Wisconsin, her birthplace, and descriptions of the adobe buildings of New Mexico, her later home, for example, are too encyclopedic to arouse much interest in readers. There are black-and-white and color photographs of the artist, her contemporaries, and sites; the full-color reproductions are excellent, but too few are of the artist's work. Robyn M. Turner's Georgia O'Keeffe (Little, Brown, 1993), for an older audience, does a better job of providing a window into the artist and her work.-Toniann Scime, Amherst Museum, NY Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.