Galaxy
Jackson Pollock (American, 1912–1956)
Title
Galaxy
Artist
Jackson Pollock (American, 1912–1956)
Date
1947
Medium
oil and aluminum paint with gravel on canvas
Dimensions
43 1/2 × 34 in. (110.5 × 86.4 cm)
Classification
Painting
Credit Line
Gift of Miss Peggy Guggenheim
Object Number
1949.164
On View
On view
Copyright
© The Pollock-Krasner Foundation / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Provenance
Miss Peggy Guggenheim (1898–1979), New York and Venice, Italy, 1947–49;
With Betty Parsons Gallery, New York, 1949;
Gift of Miss Peggy Guggenheim to Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, Nebraska, December 8, 1949.
With Betty Parsons Gallery, New York, 1949;
Gift of Miss Peggy Guggenheim to Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, Nebraska, December 8, 1949.
Exhibition History
Annual Exhibition of Contemporary American Painting, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, December 6, 1947–January 25, 1948, no. 117.Contemporary American Painting, University of Illinois, Urbana, Illinois, February 27–April 3, 1949.Omaha Community Playhouse, Omaha, Nebraska, September 20, 1950.Communicating Art from Midwest Collections, Des Moines Art Center, Iowa, October 13–November 6, 1955, no. 44.Our World Today, Sioux City Art Center, Iowa, April 6–May 24, 1958.Picture of the Month, University of New Mexico Fine Arts Center, Albuquerque, New Mexico, November 3–30, 1958.Picture of the Month, Roswell Museum and Art Center, New Mexico, December 1958.Aspects of Representation in Contemporary Art, William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Kansas City, Missouri, February 8–March 8, 1959.The Romantic Agony, Contemporary Arts Association, Houston, April 23–May 31, 1959.Art Since 1889, Art Gallery, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico, October 20–November 15, 1964, no. 93.The Growing Spectrum of American Art, Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, Nebraska, September 20–November 9, 1975, no. 61.Themes in American Painting, Grand Rapids Art Museum, Michigan, October 1–November 30, 1977, no. 101.MOSTLY X-L, Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, Nebraska, July 1–August 28, 1983.Territorium Artis, Kunst- und Ausstellungshalle der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Bonn, Germany, June 17–September 20, 1992.Siqueiros/Pollock, Pollock/Siqueiros, Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, September 29–December 3, 1995.Jackson Pollock: A Retrospective, Museum of Modern Art, New York, November 1, 1998–February 2, 1999; Tate Modern, London, March 1–June 6, 1999.Picasso and American Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, September 28, 2006–January 28, 2007; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, February 23–May 28, 2007; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, June 16–September 9, 2007.An Observable Universe, The Madden Museum of Art, Denver, November 3, 2008–February 15, 2009.The Figurative Pollock, Kunstmuseum Basel, October 2, 2016–January 22, 2017, no. 86.
Published References
Philip Gurney, “The Wonderful World of Art: Splashes, Dribbles; But Some Say it’s Art,” Dundee and West Omaha Sun, January 5, 1961, (repro.).Art Since 1889, exh. cat. (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico, 1964), (repro.).“Artist Benton Heading Upstream,” Sunday World-Herald, April 17, 1965, 4B, (repro.).Francis V. O’Connor, Jackson Pollock, exh. cat. (New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1967), 42, 48.William S. Rubin, “Jackson Pollock and the Modern Tradition Part IV,” Artforum, May 1967, 31–32, (repro.).Vincent Price, The Vincent Price Treasury of American Art (Waukesha, Wisconsin: Country Beautiful Corporation, 1972), 269, (repro.).J. Gray Sweeney, Themes in American Painting, exh. cat. (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Grand Rapids Art Museum, 1977), 194, 203, (repro.).Francis Valentine O’Connor and Eugene Victor Thaw, eds., Jackson Pollock: A Catalogue Raisonné of Paintings, Drawings, and Other Works (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1978), (repro.).William S. Rubin, “Pollock as Jungian Illustrator: The Limits of Psychological Criticism,” Art in America, December 1979, 83, 87, (repro.).Robert Carson Lamm, Rudy H. Turk, and Neal Miller Cross, The Search for Personal Freedom, 6th ed. (Dubuque, Iowa: W.C. Brown, 1984), (repro.).Contemporary World Art: Jackson Pollock (Tokyo: Shueisha Publishing Co., Ltd., 1984), (repro.).Robert Carson Lamm, Rudy H. Turk, and Neal Miller Cross, The Search for Personal Freedom, 7th ed. (Dubuque, Iowa: W.C. Brown, 1984), 378, (repro.).Holliday T. Day and Hollister Sturges, eds., Joslyn Art Museum: Paintings & Sculpture from the European & American Collections (Omaha: Joslyn Art Museum, 1987), 203–5, (repro.).Gail Levin, 20th Century American Paintings in the Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection (London: Sotheby’s Publications, 1987), (repro.).Ellen Landau, Jackson Pollock (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1989), 169–70, 174, (repro.).Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith, Jackson Pollock: An American Saga (New York: Clarkson N. Potter, 1990), (repro.).Claude Cerunschi, Jackson Pollock: Meaning and Significance (New York: IconEditions, 1992), 135.Pontus Hulten, Territorium Artis, exh. cat. (Stuttgart: Gerd Hatje, 1992), 140, 272, (repro.).Rosalind Krauss, “Qui a peur du Pollock de Greenberg?,” Les Cahiers du Musée National d’Art Moderne, no. 45/46 (Fall/Winter 1993): 166–67, (repro.).Graham W. J. Beal, Janet L. Farber, Marsha V. Gallagher, David C. Hunt, and Carol D. Wyrick, Fifty Favorites from Joslyn Art Museum (Omaha: Joslyn Art Museum, 1994), 98–99, (repro.).Mike Venezia, Getting to Know the World’s Greatest Artist’s: Jackson Pollock (Chicago: Children’s Press, 1994), 4, (repro.).Martica Swain, Surrealism in Exile and the Beginning of the New York School (Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 1995), 406, (repro.).Michael Kimmelman, “How Even Pollock’s Failures Enhance His Triumphs,” The New York Times, October 30, 1998, B29, B32, (repro.).Francine Prose, “The Control Beneath the Chaos,” Wall Street Journal, November 10, 1998.Kirk Varnedoe and Pepe Karmel, Jackson Pollock, exh. cat. (New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1998), 103–5, 218–19, (repro.).Kent Wolgamott, “Abstract Expressionism: It’s in the attitude,” Lincoln Journal Star, November 15, 1998, 8H.Michael Fitzgerald, “Leaving his mark,” Vogue, November 1999, 372, 419, (repro.).Jeanne Siegel, Painting After Pollock: Structures of Influence (Amsterdam: G&B Arts, 1999), 165, (repro.).Colin Rhodes, “The Impossibility of Duality: The Vision of Jackson Pollock,” in Benjamin’s Blind Spot: Walter Benjamin and the Premature Death of Aura, Lisa Pratt, ed. (Topanga, California: The Institute of Cultural Inquiry, 2001), 114, 116, (repro.).Thomas Crow, “Images (é)mouvantes,” La Part de l’Œil, no. 17/18 (2001/2002): 88, 92, 95, (repro.).Kristen A. Hoving, “Jackson Pollock’s Galaxy: Outer Space and Artist’s Space in Pollock’s Cosmic Paintings,” American Art 16, no.1 (Spring 2002): 82–85, 87, 91, (repro.).Leonie Bennett, The Life and Work of Jackson Pollock (Chicago: Heinemann Library, 2005), 21 (repro.).Mary Voelz Chandler, “Eclectic works highlight new facility’s first show,” Rocky Mountain News, November 22, 2008, (repro.).Kyle MacMillan, “In Greenwood Village, a new museum ponders its mission,” Denver Post, January 25, 2009, (repro.).Elizabeth L. Langhorne, Jackson Pollock: Kunst als Sinnusche: Abstraktion, All-over, Action Painting (Wallerstein, Germany: Hawel, 2013), 278.Nina Zimmer, ed., The Figurative Pollock, exh. cat. (Basel: Kunstmuseum Basel; Munich, London, and New York: Prestel, 2016), front endpaper, 75, 155, 203–4, (repro.).E. Carmen Ramos, Tamayo: The New York Years (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian American Art Museum; London: D Giles Limited, 2017), 62, (repro.)