The present work, executed circa 1952-56, rendered in black ink on pale red paper features stylish impromptu lines and short, rapid marks scattered across the sheet. The psychologically charged composition bursts with activity and energy, a style that is said to have symbolized a pictorial representation of the artist’s subconscious. Unlike his earlier dripped technique, the style Pollock adopted in the present work includes multiple passages of thicker black marks. The reliance of the color black is particularly significant since it emphasized the visceral energy within the composition, allowing the actual marks to come to the fore. This new style enabled him to translate his inner feelings of angst and turmoil through his artwork at a time when he was suffering from severe alcoholism and depression, a phenomenon that is particularly pronounced in Untitled.
"[These drawings were] a new kind of stimulus to Pollock, a new kind of 'automatic' or hallucinatory drawing in which the remnants of one image suggested the others. Sometime the second or third sheet is more elaborated, in other cases it is less material. In both cases the works acquired a new kind of ambiguity that is both optical and metaphysical."
In the four years leading up to his untimely passing in 1956, Pollock underwent a period of reflection and discovery that lead him to revisit some of the graphic styles and images of his early career. The resulting works are indicative of an artist reaching his creative and conceptual maturity and are considered to be among his most accomplished pieces within his oeuvre. Works from this time include his legendary black paintings, which featured dark enamel on canvas, and watercolor or ink on paper. These paintings represent the fulfillment of Pollock’s quest to successfully harness his intensely improvised proprietary painting style.
Restricting his palette and working in ink on paper on a smaller scale allowed Pollock to explore new directions in a rudimentary way with little consequence. It also permitted him to be more expressive and established a more direct connection between hand and line in a way that brings out his best qualities, allowing ink to pool, blob, and sometimes drip. These explorations on paper set the scene for one of his most remarkable innovations in which he filled a turkey baster with diluted enamel paint, welding it like an oversized fountain pen. This technical revelation led to some of his most extraordinary artworks, tat he referred to as “drawings on canvas.”
All of these intricacies, facets, and feelings that lingered under the surface of this remarkably accomplished, yet deeply complex artist are united in Untitled, and erupt in this exceptional work on paper.