Plate for Untitled (4)
Jackson Pollock
American, 1912–1956
c. 1944–45
A steel-faced copper plate worked with engraving and drypoint in which Pollock etched a tangled, gestural network of lines to translate motion and texture into prints.
At a glance the surface reads as a dense, rhythmic web of overlapping scratches—curving strokes that rise and sink across the metallic ground to produce ghostly, repeated forms and subtle shifts of depth.
These experimental plates show Pollock testing how his automatic, calligraphic gestures could be rendered in print, linking his Surrealist drawing practice to the action painting that reshaped postwar American abstraction.
Medium
Engraving and drypoint on steel-faced copper plate
Dimensions
plate: 14 7/8 × 17 7/8" (37.8 × 45.4 cm)
Classification
Department
Credit
Gift of Lee Krasner Pollock
Accession
452.1969
Palette
Art Terms
Exhibitions
