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Jackson Pollock painting sells for record $181m at auction
msn ^

Posted on 05/19/2026 7:38:27 AM PDT by BenLurkin

A Jackson Pollock artwork, described as one of history's "first truly abstract paintings", has sold at auction for $181m (£135m) in New York.

Number 7A, 1948, which went under the hammer at the renowned Christie's auction house on Monday, smashed the previous record for the most a work by the late American artist has taken at auction.

Christie's called Number 7A, 1948, which depicts black drips of paint with touches of red on a huge canvas spanning more than three metres, a key piece of art history.

"It is with this work that Pollock finally frees himself from the shackles of conventional easel painting and produces one of the first truly abstract paintings in the history of art," it wrote in its description of the piece online.

(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...


TOPICS: Arts/Photography
KEYWORDS: jacksonpollock

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To: BenLurkin

The drop cloth I have used for the last 30 years of painting my walls has more artistic value.


21 posted on 05/19/2026 7:52:48 AM PDT by Pontiac (The welfare state must fail because it is contrary to human nature and diminisheRs the human spirit.)
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To: BenLurkin

It is a gullibility test.


22 posted on 05/19/2026 7:53:50 AM PDT by UnwashedPeasant (The pandemic we suffer from is not COVID. It is Marxist Democrat Leftism. )
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To: DannyTN

LMAO! Perfect.


23 posted on 05/19/2026 7:53:58 AM PDT by Danie_2023 (I'm America First, but I stand by Israel and against 'anyone' that acts against America or Israel.)
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To: BenLurkin

https://www.openculture.com/2023/10/how-the-cia-secretly-used-jackson-pollock-other-abstract-expressionists-to-fight-the-cold-war.html

The CIA sponsored him with a goal of demoralizing he Soviets. Turned out they demoralized America.


24 posted on 05/19/2026 7:54:40 AM PDT by DesertRhino (When men on the chessboard, get up and tell you where to go…)
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To: BenLurkin

If it is truly abstract art, then what is it meant to be an abstraction of?


25 posted on 05/19/2026 7:54:47 AM PDT by omni-scientist
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To: Nateman

Actually. Hunter’s paintings show more skill and creativity than this garbage.


26 posted on 05/19/2026 7:56:09 AM PDT by Organic Panic
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To: Zathras

I dont get it- van gogh yeah, but not pollock paintings. Yeah, they do show a fo4m of understanding about composition, bu5 beyond that basic art painciple 8n his paintings, what is there? Certainly not color, tone, contrast etc (there is a bi5 of contrast ie black on white, but no complex contrast)

There was a girl who did these kind of drip paintings, BUT she usee many colors to great effect, and created almost surreal worlds with the carefully dripped splotches. They were actually very inter3sting paintings.

Rothko paintings look simplistic, but when viewed up close, they show some really neat blending and subtle shifts in color that are something to behold it is said. They almost look childish at first, but study8ng the technique shows they are anything but. Many many thin layers 5o allow under layers to show through and subtly change the color and an advanced understanding of color.

I just dont get pollok paintings at all


27 posted on 05/19/2026 7:57:17 AM PDT by Bob434 (Time flies like an arrow, Fruit flies like a banana)
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To: dfwgator
I could do that, and if I can do it, it ain’t art.

I feel the same way about the stuff I see at craft fairs all the time - if I can easily figure out how they did it, it (as you said) ain't art.

28 posted on 05/19/2026 7:57:20 AM PDT by Quality_Not_Quantity ("...for the sake of His name." Psalm 23:3)
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To: omni-scientist

Insanity.


29 posted on 05/19/2026 8:02:10 AM PDT by aquila48 (Do not let them make you "care" ! Guilting you is how they control you. )
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To: Organic Panic

So what you are saying is that Hunter Biden has better poop?


30 posted on 05/19/2026 8:02:36 AM PDT by Nateman (Democrats did not strive for fraud friendly voting merely to continue honest elections.)
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To: All

Jackson Pollock used a revolutionary “drip technique”—often called action painting—to create his multimillion-dollar masterpieces. By laying large, unstretched canvases on his studio floor, he dripped, poured, and flung industrial paint using sticks, trowels, and stiffened brushes, allowing him to work from all sides and incorporate his entire body into the artwork.

Pollock’s method was deeply physical, described as a dance-like, energetic, and rhythmic movement where he would walk around and enter the canvas, making the process of creation as important as the finished work.

Instead of using traditional artist oil paint, he used liquid household enamel and metallic paints, allowing them to flow and form complex networks of colors.

He abandoned traditional focal points, covering the entire canvas with intricate webs of paint that avoided any specific top or bottom, giving a sense of rhythmic continuity.

While his work appears accidental, Pollock maintained control over the paint’s flow by manipulating its viscosity and the speed of his gestures, arguing that his technique was deliberate, not accidental.

By abandoning the easel and paintbrush, Pollock revolutionized American art in the late 1940s and early 1950s, creating iconic works such as Number 5, 1948, which has sold for over $140 million.


31 posted on 05/19/2026 8:05:03 AM PDT by Liz (Winston Churchill: “Nothing in life is so hilarating as to be shot at without result.”)
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To: Antoninus
Plain and simple.

Like all those 'Mattress Firm' stores.

Nobody needs that many damned mattresses.

32 posted on 05/19/2026 8:05:30 AM PDT by Frank Drebin (And don't ever let me catch you guys in America!)
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To: Zathras
Troubled man, indeed!

33 posted on 05/19/2026 8:07:09 AM PDT by budj (Combat Vet, second of three generations.)
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To: Vision

Precisely.


34 posted on 05/19/2026 8:09:30 AM PDT by MeneMeneTekelUpharsin (Freedom is the freedom to discipline yourself so others don't have to do it for you.)
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To: BenLurkin

Looks like my overly damp basement wall…


35 posted on 05/19/2026 8:09:41 AM PDT by rhinohunter (I don’t know if God is a Republican, but I am metaphysically certain that satan is a democrat)
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To: BenLurkin

Looks like the inside of my toilet bowl when my IBS hits.


36 posted on 05/19/2026 8:10:44 AM PDT by for-q-clinton (RL)
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To: BenLurkin

True story. In my sixth grade class at elementary school I made a painting similar to this using different colors. For whatever reason my teacher liked it so much she wanted to buy it. I sold it for a dollar believing I had truly ripped her off. Later on in my yearbook one of my friends wrote : ‘Sell some more yuck for a buck!’


37 posted on 05/19/2026 8:11:10 AM PDT by Nateman (Democrats did not strive for fraud friendly voting merely to continue honest elections.)
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To: BenLurkin
Is that actually a painting???

Or... Is it instead, the rug that he spilt his paint on while painting this masterpiece?


38 posted on 05/19/2026 8:11:14 AM PDT by jerod (Nazis were essentially Socialist in Hugo Boss uniforms... Get over it!)
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To: dfwgator

Yea, but I bet you can’t make a giant chrome spoon like the paid millions for in Spain.


39 posted on 05/19/2026 8:21:38 AM PDT by anton
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To: NorthMountain

Correct. It is crap. I actually went to a museum here a few years back and they had a big 8-foot by 12-foot white canvas on the wall. No paint, no anything and the asking price was $500k. I got looks from all around when after standing there for several minutes looking at it, I turned to my son and said in a not quiet voice, “that is bullshit, not art”. Next to it was a bunch of FedEx boxes that had been pulled from a garbage can and randomly torn apart and glued back to together. They only wanted $25K for that crap.


40 posted on 05/19/2026 8:22:19 AM PDT by Resolute Conservative
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