Number 14: Gray Artist: Jackson Pollock (American, 1912–1956)

1948

Prints and Drawings

By appointment, Duffy Study Room

Jackson Pollock's classic poured paintings, made from 1947 to 1950, include several works in enamel on gesso-covered paper, of which Number 14: Gray is a particularly striking example. Pollock dripped the black enamel paint onto the surface while the gesso was still wet so that the paint bled into the chalky white ground, creating a silver-gray halo around the lines and pools of black. Pollock's pouring method was a breakthrough in his quest to avoid the illusionist space of traditional painting and create a total visual effect. Number 14 epitomizes Pollock's new working method; the paint literally merges with the ground where enamel and gesso meet. In this period, Pollock strove to free line from the representational image and make it a function of pure movement.

Medium

Enamel over gesso on paper

Dimensions

22 7/16 × 30 7/8 in. (57 × 78.5 cm)
framed: 29 7/8 × 37 7/8 × 1 7/8 in. (75.9 × 96.2 × 4.8 cm)

Credit Line

Katharine Ordway Collection

Accession Number

1980.13.74

Geography

Made in United States

Culture

American

Period

20th century

Classification

Drawings

Disclaimer

Note: This electronic record was created from historic documentation that does not necessarily reflect the Yale University Art Gallery’s complete or current knowledge about the object. Review and updating of records is ongoing.

Provenance
Betty Parson Gallery
Bibliography
  • James Prosek and Edith Devaney, James Prosek: Art, Artifact, Artifice, exh. cat. (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Art Gallery, 2020), 43, pl. 22
  • Sequoia Miller and John Stuart Gordon, The Ceramic Presence in Modern Art: Selections from the Linda Leonard Schlenger Collection and the Yale University Art Gallery, exh. cat. (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Art Gallery, 2015–16), 75, fig. 66
  • Arthur P. Shimamura, Experiencing Art: In the Brain of the Beholder (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), 105, fig. 5.4
  • Susan Davidson, David Anfam, and Margaret Holben Ellis, No Limits, Just Edges: Jackson Pollock Paintings on Paper, exh. cat. (New York: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, 2005), 100, no. 55, ill
  • Elisabeth Hodermarsky, "Katharine Ordway, Guardian of Nature and of Art," Yale University Art Gallery Bulletin (2002), 86, fig. 8
  • Jim Coddington, "Jackson Pollock's 'Number 13A, 1948: Arabesque'," Yale University Art Gallery Bulletin (1999), 140, fig. 2
  • Elizabeth Frank, Jackson Pollock, 3 (New York: Abbeville Press, 1983), 74–75, no. 63
  • Lesley K. Baier, The Katharine Ordway Collection, exh. cat. (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Art Gallery, 1983), 58–60, 103, no. 41
  • Bernard Harper Friedman, Jackson Pollock: Energy Made Visible, 1st ed. (New York, N.Y.: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1972), n.p., fig. 6
Object copyright
© 2012 The Pollock-Krasner Foundation / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
In Copyright
Additional information

Inscriptions

Signed bottom, left of center: Jackson Pollock '48

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