‘Hidden images' in Pollock's work might have been intended

Independent

06-02-2025

Jackson Pollock 's abstract paintings, filled with bold splashes of colour, are often derided as the kind of work a child could do.
The American painter, who died in a car crash in 1956 after driving while drunk, said he tried to stay away from portraying 'any recognisable image' in his artwork.
But a new study suggests that the chaotic and indecipherable patterns contain coherent images the artist may have been unaware of because of his bipolar disorder.
Monkeys, clowns, self-portraits, elephants and bottles of alcohol are all apparently hidden in plain sight within the paintings, which are now worth millions.
Pollock, one of the titans of 20th century abstract expressionism, used a 'drip technique', in which he poured or splashed paint onto a horizontal surface. He used the force of his whole body and frenetic dance to enable him to view the work from all angles.
The drips hide 'camouflaged images' at the base of some of his most renowned paintings, demonstrating his complex and 'creative genius' says the new research, led by psychiatric professor Stephen M Stahl and his team, and published in CNS Spectrums by Cambridge University Press.
Many of the 'recognisable' images', termed 'polloglyphs', have parallels with the sketches Pollock made for his first psychoanalyst aged 24, in 1936, which the therapist later sold.
For example, the artist's 1945 work Troubled Queen, looks at first glance like a complex mesh of colours and geometric patterns. But the paper suggests that if rotated by 90 degrees, they reveal 'a charging soldier holding a hatchet and a pistol with a bullet in the barrel; a Picasso-esque rooster; a monkey with goggles and wine; and one of the clearest images, the angel of mercy and her sword.'
The paper suggests that if rotated by 90 degrees the artist's 1945 work Troubled Queen would, for example, reveal
The 'consciously or unconsciously encrypted images', which they term 'polloglyphs'
'His remarkable ability to hide these images in plain sight may have been part of his creative genius and could also have been enhanced by the endowment of extraordinary visual spatial skills that have been described in some bipolar patients,' said Professor Stahl.
'Ultimately, we may never know if there are polloglyphs present in Jackson Pollock's famous drip paintings,' the researchers write. 'Nor can we know for sure whether they are merely in the mind of the beholder or put there consciously or unconsciously by the artist.'
Pollock said about his creative process: 'When I am in my painting, I'm not aware of what I am doing.'
His 1948 work No 5 was sold to an undisclosed buyer for $140 million in 2006.
He made a conscious effort to 'do away' with any images or shapes in his work, saying: 'I try to stay away from any recognisable image; if it creeps in, I try to do away with it.'
But he admitted 'recognisable images are always there in the end.'