2017.7 Pollock, Figure Kneeling Before Arch with Skulls

This early painting by Jackson Pollock shows that his artistic pursuits were wide-reaching, incorporating elements of Surrealism, Mexican Muralism, and Renaissance painting. In the early 1930s, Pollock studied at the Art Students League in New York, where he was closely mentored by American Regionalist painter Thomas Hart Benton. Pollock's sketchbooks contain drawings after works by Rubens, Michelangelo, and Rembrandt. The largest number of sketches are based on his studies of El Greco. In Figure Kneeling Before Arches with Skulls, the 16th-century painter's influence on Pollock is particularly evident in the horizontal division of the picture plane, the oval flow of the composition, and the repeated use of jagged lines and triangular forms. 

Pollock_Jackson: ULAN: 500015134

United States (nation): TGN: 7012149

oil paintings (visual works): AAT: 300033799

canvas: AAT: 300014078

twentieth century (dates CE): AAT: 300404514

Benton_Thomas Hart: ULAN: 500005998

Greco_El: ULAN: 500010916

Abstract Expressionist: AAT: 300022099

angles (geometric concepts): AAT: 300055620

arches: AAT: 300000994

Art Students' League: ULAN: 500303709

Death (allegorical character / figure): DMA

expressionist (style): AAT: 300021502

melancholy: AAT: 300055166

Mexican Muralist (movement): AAT: 300107850

Modern (style or period): AAT: 300264736

religious symbolism: AAT: 300055874

Renaissance: AAT: 300021140

sketchbooks: AAT: 300027354

skull (skeleton component): AAT: 300191856

Surrealist (style or movement): AAT: 300021512

Until 1985: Lee Krasner, New York

From 1985: The Pollock-Krasner Foundation, New York

n.d.: Joan Washburn Gallery, New York 

From 2017: Dallas Museum of Art, TWO x TWO for AIDS and Art Fund purchase from above 

The main source for this provenance is information previously entered in TMS. 

Charles Wylie discusses Pollock's life as an archetype of what it means to be american.

28775560: UMO

Apply to objects where number equals 2017.7