Synopsis
Discusses the life, art, and legacy of the artist Jackson Pollock. Includes a timeline linking the events in his life with world events.
School Library Journal
Gr 5-8-Slim series entries that examine two 20th-century American artists. Pollock lived a sometimes troubled and ultimately tragic life, despite his success in popularizing revolutionary methods of creating art. Oliver does not sugarcoat or contradict the realities of alcoholism and frequent reclusiveness. Her objective, accessible treatment makes the abstract expressionist movement and Pollock's innovations understandable to young readers. There are numerous black-and-white photos of Pollock and his contemporaries and color reproductions of his work. Thomson outlines the scope of O'Keeffe's life and work, and frequently points out the influences one had on the other, but fails to give readers much sense of the woman herself. Sidebar maps of Wisconsin, her birthplace, and descriptions of the adobe buildings of New Mexico, her later home, for example, are too encyclopedic to arouse much interest in readers. There are black-and-white and color photographs of the artist, her contemporaries, and sites; the full-color reproductions are excellent, but too few are of the artist's work. Robyn M. Turner's Georgia O'Keeffe (Little, Brown, 1993), for an older audience, does a better job of providing a window into the artist and her work.-Toniann Scime, Amherst Museum, NY Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.