Paul Jackson Pollock was born in Cody, Wyoming on January 28th in 1912. He was the fifth youngest son of LeRoy McCoy Pollock and Stella McClure Pollock. The family left Cody when Pollock was less than a year old, and he was raised in Arizona and California. His father worked as a surveyor in the grand canyon where Jackson was exposed to vast open views. He would also play with his brothers in the Indian mounds that were right next to the house his mother was the housekeeper for. Both of these experiences influenced Pollock's work later on in life.
Jackson gained an interest in art while attending Manual Arts High School in Los Angeles but he never finished. Instead he followed his oldest brother Charles to New York to study with the painter Thomas Hart Benton, at The Art Students League in 1930. Benton taught Pollock that the artist's experience while painting was more important then the finished project. Pollock was influenced by not only Benton but by Picasso and by a number of Spanish painters. In 1936 Pollock attended Siqueiros" workshop where he discovered the use of enamel paint and was encouraged to try unorthodox techniques like pouring and flinging the paint to create a spontaneous effect.
Pollock enrolled in the easel division of the Works Progress Administration's Federal Art Project. He would paint one painting a month for a public building which gave him an income for nearly eight years. This allowed him to concentrate on his work. By the early 1940's, Native American motifs played a central role in his compositions, marking the beginnings of a mature style. .
Even as his art was gaining originality, Pollock was experiencing recurring fits of depression. He was also struggling to control his alcoholism, which would continue to plague him throughout his life. His brothers Charles and Sande, encouraged him to seek treatment. Although therapy was not successful in curbing Pollock's drinking or relieving his depression, it introduced him to weird concepts that validated the symbolic direction his art was taking.
