Black and White Painting II (section)

Pools of black ink spread and scatter across pale canvas in this piece by Jackson Pollock, painted in 1951. Titled Black and White Painting II, it comes from a moment when the artist stepped away from the wild bursts of color that had made him a household name. Working on the floor as usual, flinging and dripping paint while circling the canvas, he limited himself here to black alone, letting the shapes and splatters do all the talking.

The stripped-down palette arrived during a difficult stretch for Pollock. Having pushed his famous drip method about as far as it could go, he seemed to want to return to something more basic and see what remained. Curiously, faces and figures started to appear in these works, and Pollock himself said such images sometimes surfaced without any planning on his part. Trace the winding paths of ink and you may catch a hint of a shape, or you may simply enjoy the loops and swings that record the movement of his hand.