Aerodynamics

Charles Pollock, Aerodynamics, 1947, ink and gouache on paper, sheet: 20 ⁷⁄₈ x 14 ³⁄₈ in. (53.0 x 36.5 cm), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Nelson Allmendinger, 1978.39.5, © 1947 Charles Pollock Archives

Artwork Details

Title: Aerodynamics
Artist: Charles Pollock
Date: 1947
Location: Not on view
Dimensions: sheet: 20 ⁷⁄₈ x 14 ³⁄₈ in. (53.0 x 36.5 cm)
Copyright: © 1947 Charles Pollock Archives
Credit Line: Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Nelson Allmendinger
Mediums: ink
gouache
Mediums Description: ink and gouache on paper
Classifications: Drawing
Subjects: Abstract
Object Number: 1978.39.5
Linked Open Data: https://edan.si.edu/saam/id/object/1978.39.5

Artwork Description

Charles Pollock was the oldest and Jackson Pollock the youngest of the five sons of Stella May and Leroy Pollock. Born ten years earlier, Charles was measured, reflective, and patient, while Jackson was impulsive and mercurial. Charles was the first of the two to move to New York from the West and helped convince Jackson to continue his art studies in 1930. When Charles left New York in 1935, moving first to Washington, DC, and then to Michigan, the two brothers did not remain close. Charles drew Aerodynamics the same year that Jackson was embarking on the series of “drip” paintings that would catapult him to fame in the New York art world and abroad. The geometric shapes floating in the muted, monochromatic field of this drawing were typical of Charles’s more restrained and cerebral approach to abstraction.

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