As far as the world of modern art goes, many different techniques and styles can be used. Real images, portraits, cubism, photography, and many others are available at the artists discretion. One style which shows us how art has evolved from its classical predecessors is abstract expressionism. The term, now "action painting", was first used in reference to Kandinsky in 1919. There are two distinct fields of this style of painting: Color field art, dealing with simple unified blocks of color, and gestural art, making use of surrealist styles of automatic art. (Gibson, 15) One artist who has stood out in the crowd of action painters showed us that art can be just about anything one wants it to be. Jackson Pollock has created many different works of art, all using the technique of abstraction and expressionism. His works have a deliberate look of chaos and intrigue, giving audiences something more than just an ordinary art exhibition. (Gibson, 67).
Jackson Pollock was born on January 28th, 1912 in the small town of Cody, Wyoming. (Frank, 11) In 1928, after moving to Los Angeles with his family, he began studying art and painting at his high school. (Frank, 12) After graduating, Pollock moved to New York in 1930 and studied under Thomas Hart Benton. Benton was an exceptional influence in Pollock's perspective and relative style. Pollock once said, of Benton, "He drove his kind of realism into me so hard, I bounce right into non-objective painting." While under Hart, he moved into a upstairs bedroom in New York; he then turned that room into his own art studio. (Frank, 16-17) .
Pollock had his first solo show in 1943 at Peggy Guggenheim's Art of This Century Gallery in New York City. The show was an extravagant success, thus Guggenheim rewarded Pollock with a contract through 1947. The paintings during this time his paintings were a combination of Picasso's cubism, Miro's post-cubism, and Kandisky's surrealism.