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Was Jackson Pollock a hopeless romantic? That’s what his mistress, Ruth Kligman, suggested. As she tells it, in 1956 the great American painter created a canvas just for her, a visual love letter of sorts.
Unfortunately, Pollock never signed the piece, leaving the world to wonder: was this really his painting or an enormous art world sham?
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Attributed to Jackson Pollock, "Red, Black and Silver", 1956, oil on canvas, private collection. © ADAGP, Paris 2016.
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Things would have been a lot simpler if Pollock had just cleared up the ambiguity himself. Sadly, he never had the chance. A few weeks after finishing the alleged work, both he and Kligman were in a terrible car accident. She survived, but he died behind the wheel.
From that moment on, Kligman was eager to have the painting authenticated. But that would turn out to be much more complicated than expected…
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Photograph of Jackson Pollock and Ruth Kligman.
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Lee Krasner, Pollock’s wife, was the official expert on the painter. Effectively, she was the one who verified whether a piece was genuine or not.
Unsurprisingly, Krasner wasn’t too interested in helping out her husband’s mistress. The painting in question, now known as Red, Black and Silver, was excluded from the artist’s official catalogue.
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Photograph of Lee Krasner and Jackson Pollock.
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In 2013, an independent expert came to examine the piece. Treating the canvas like a crime scene, the investigator ran all sorts of tests. In the dry paint, he found fibers that probably came from Pollock’s slippers. He also identified seeds typically found near Pollock’s home.
The strongest piece of evidence? A polar bear hair!
A polar bear hair? Yep. Pollock owned a bear skin, so it’s very likely that the painting was completed in the artist's home.
But was it Pollock or Kligman holding the brush? No one can confirm.
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Attributed to Jackson Pollock, "Red, Black and Silver", 1956, oil on canvas, private collection. © ADAGP, Paris 2016. Detail of the painting.
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There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact.
