TEACHERS PACK

Cerith Wyn Evans Astrophotography...The Traditional Measure of Photographic Speed in Astronomy...‘ by Siegfried Marx (1997) 2006 © Cerith Wyn Evans Courtesy White Cube, London

INTRODUCTION

DLA Piper Series: Constellations takes a fresh look at the links between artworks across time and location of origin. The display examines the role of five ‘trigger’ works from the Tate collection, shown within groups or ‘constellations’ of other artworks from different periods in art history. The viewer is encouraged to consider how the ‘trigger’ works were influenced by or had an impact on the surrounding constellation. These works have been selected for their continuous and revolutionary effect on modern and contemporary art.

The first floor galleries feature works between 1900 and 1960. ‘Trigger’ works on this floor are: • Pablo Picasso Bowl of Fruit, Violin and Bottle 1914 • Henri Matisse The Inattentive Reader 1919 • Man Ray L’Enigme d’Isidore Ducasse 1920 • Barbara Hepworth Single Form (Eikon) 1937–8 • Jackson Pollock Summertime: Number 9A 1948 The constellations around them include works by Constantin Brancusi, Robert Delaunay and Isa Genzken.

The pack is designed to support teachers and educators in planning a visit to the display with a collection of ideas, workshops and points for discussion around each ‘trigger’ work. It is intended as a starting point that will ‘trigger’ your own constellations of connections and creative ideas. The activities are suitable for all ages and can be adapted to your needs before, during and after your visit. The pack has been designed for download to be printed or projected in the classroom. For further details about visiting Tate Liverpool with your group and to book a visit online see: www.tate.org.uk/learn/teachers/school-visitstate-liverpool Email [email protected] or call +44(0)151 702 7400

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CONTENTS

MAKING CONSTELLATIONS

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FIRST FLOOR GALLERIES

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PABLO PICASSO BOWL OF FRUIT, VIOLIN AND BOTTLE 1914

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MAN RAY L’ENIGME D’ISIDORE DUCASSE 1920

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HENRI MATISSE THE INATTENTIVE READER 1919

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BARBARA HEPWORTH SINGLE FORM (EIKON) 1937–8

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JACKSON POLLOCK SUMMERTIME: NUMBER 9A 1948

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MAKING CONSTELLATIONS

Definition: 1/ A group of stars 2/ A group of associated people or things Etymology: Latin – constellatio, from con – together and stella – star (Chambers Dictionary)

Below is an example of a possible ‘constellation’ but students should be encouraged to develop their own shapes and designs.

Before focusing on the ‘trigger’ works, students could be introduced to the concept behind the display at Tate Liverpool, by making their own personal ‘Constellation,’ linking influences on their life to their own individual place in the world.

SOUND

WORDS

TEXT

NUMBERS

IPOD

MOBILE

PHOTOS

FRIENDS LANGUAGE

DREAMS CREATE

FRANCE

ME (NAME)

FLYING

HOLIDAY

CYCLING ART SPORT

CHAGALL

ROADS

FAMILY CITY

PETS ANIMALS

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TEAM HISTORY

HOME

MAKING CONSTELLATIONS

ACTIVITIES CHOOSE a ‘cluster’ or group of words and phrases from your personal ‘constellation’ and illustrate them with drawings, paintings, photographs or sculptures. DISCUSS your personal ‘constellations’ as a group. Have any other students chosen the same or similar words? You could link your constellations to those of your friends to expand it into a larger ‘galaxy.’ Can you create a ‘word cloud’ from your collective constellations? In the gallery, look for the word clouds we have created.

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TRIGGER WORKS FROM THE CONSTELLATIONS DISPLAY AT TATE LIVERPOOL In the gallery, without telling your students the names of the artists or artworks and before reading any contextual information, choose a ‘trigger work’ and talk about it together (see page 2 for a list of these works). Prompt your group with questions such as ‘What do you see? Does this remind you of anything? What name would you give this?’ Describe colours/shapes/ materials etc. As they offer words and phrases, begin to construct a ‘constellation’ chart with the art work at the centre and their suggestions in the word balloons. Further expand the constellation by adding associations and links from their words. For example, the Picasso work could produce the word ‘newspaper’ which you could link to ‘read’ or ‘text.’ These words could suggest ‘mobile’ or ‘message’ or ‘communicate’ etc.

Once you have a ‘constellation’ you can repeat the above activities and create artworks connected to your chart. Alternatively, assign different ‘trigger’ works to groups of students and encourage them to collaborate on a ‘constellation.’ Each group could give feedback to the rest of the class on their results and explain their choices of words etc.

PABLO PICASSO BOWL OF FRUIT, VIOLIN AND BOTTLE 1914

© Succession Picasso/DACS 2002

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PABLO PICASSO BOWL OF FRUIT, VIOLIN AND BOTTLE 1914

‘Everyone wants to understand painting. Why don’t they try to understand the song of the birds? Why do they love a night, a flower, everything which surrounds man, without attempting to understand them? Whereas where painting is concerned, they want to understand.’ Pablo Picasso PABLO PICASSO (1881-1973) Picasso worked in an unprecedented range of styles and media during his long career. Born in Malaga, Spain, he trained at art schools in Barcelona and Madrid before finally settling in Paris in 1904. At this time, the city was a hub of creative activity and Picasso rapidly immersed himself in the avant-garde art and literary circles. Besides contemporary art, he studied the old masters at the Louvre along with African and Oceanic carvings at the ethnographic museums and these diverse influences would contribute to the development of his own unique visual language. In 1906 Picasso met Georges Braque. Together they began investigating different means of pictorial representation, which resulted in

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their creation of Cubism, a movement which would change the course of modern European art. Cubism took an objective, detached approach to traditional subjects such as still life, landscape and the nude. Instead of depicting objects from a fixed viewpoint, Cubism examined them from multiple angles and rather than attempting to create an illusion of three dimensions, Cubism flattened form into shallow relief and emphasised the surface of the picture plane. From 1912, Picasso and Braque further developed this form of art by incorporating pasted paper and other materials into their paintings to create collages. BOWL OF FRUIT, VIOLIN AND BOTTLE 1914 This painting is an example of the Cubist technique that was developed by Picasso and Braque in Paris before the First World War. The composition can be read as a still life, with the table-top dominating the canvas. The scene is constructed from areas of colours that resemble cut-out pieces of paper on a white background. Following on from their Cubist collages from 1912, which experimented with reality and representation,

Picasso and Braque began to simulate the appearance of collage in their paintings, sometimes (as here) adding sand and dust to the paint to give a heightened sense of texture to the picture surface. This makes the viewer aware of the painting as an object that exists in the real world besides offering an illusion of imaginary space. A table occupies most of the picture space, covered with fragmented forms and set against a plain wall. At the highest point of the composition, is the outline of a fruit-bowl and at the bottom is the decorative edging of a table-cloth draped over the turned wooden legs. The table-top, however, is shown from above as though tilted towards the viewer, whilst the objects placed on it are shown from different angles rather than a single, fixed point. A violin, laid across the centre of the group is represented by details of its parts – a bridge, strings, sound holes and a neck – again, viewed from multiple perspectives. Its broken outlines also imply the refraction of objects viewed through glass. Repeated arcs and clusters of circles suggest grapes and the surrounding curves, areas of blue and spots of dappled light indicate

PABLO PICASSO BOWL OF FRUIT, VIOLIN AND BOTTLE 1914

a glass bowl and a bottle. Picasso often used stippled brushstrokes to signify light and shadow – possibly making reference to Impressionism or Pointilism, art movements that were particularly concerned with the effects of luminosity and colour. The viewer is invited to put these elements together mentally rather than visually, and relying on association and memory in order to make sense of the composition. By arranging the elements in flat planes on the surface of the canvas, the spectator is brought into close contact with the subject, which is literally ‘in your face.’ Nothing in the composition appears static because in real life, people at a café table would be constantly shifting and moving the objects around. The fragment of newspaper tells you that this represents contemporary life – the here and now. Rather than creating a ‘still’ life, Picasso captures the vibrant atmosphere of pre-War Paris presented directly, like a table set before the viewer.

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ACTIVITIES FIND OUT ABOUT: • Cubism – how did Picasso and Braque create this form of art? Trace the stages of its development from 1908 to 1914. • Collage – what materials did Picasso use? Did other artists make collages? Look at the work of Henri Matisse, Kurt Schwitters, Peter Blake, Edouardo Paolozzi etc • Picasso – what else did he paint? How did he develop his art from Cubism? Look at his sculptures made from assembled objects (eg Still Life 1914 – see: http://www.tate.org.uk/art/ artworks/picasso-still-life-t01136) MAKE: • A Cubist still life drawing. Set up objects and draw them from different viewpoints. Cover the entire surface of your sheet with your sketches. • A Cubist still life collage/painting incorporating bits of real material besides drawing and painted areas.

Use objects that represent your life – try mixing other substances into your paint such as coffee, tea leaves, washing powder, glitter etc. Be inventive! • A table-top assemblage by fixing a combination of real objects and drawings to a tray or wooden panel. Attach a fitting to the reverse of the tray to enable you to hang the finished work on a wall. DISCUSS: • Perspective in art. Who invented fixed point perspective? Does an artist have to depict perspective? Look at the Art of the Italian Renaissance (eg Uccello, Brunelleschi, Piero della Francesca) and compare it to Japanese art (eg Hokusai, Sesshu, Hiroshige etc) • Still life paintings in art history. How does Picasso’s painting differ from, say, a still life by Chardin or Cézanne?

PABLO PICASSO BOWL OF FRUIT, VIOLIN AND BOTTLE 1914

FURTHER RESOURCES Mark Antliff and Patricia Leighton, Cubism and Culture (World of Art) Thames and Hudson 2001 David Cottington, Cubism (Movements in Modern Art Series), Tate Publishing 1998 John Richardson, A Life of Picasso Volume ll, 1907-1917, Jonathan Cape 1996

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MAN RAY L’ENIGME D’ISIDORE DUCASSE 1920

© Man Ray Trust/ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London 2002

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MAN RAY L’ENIGME D’ISIDORE DUCASSE 1920

‘I have been accused of being a joker. But the most successful art to me involves humour.’ MAN RAY (1890-1976) Born in Philadelphia, Man Ray worked in advertising and technical illustration in NY and attended life drawing classes under American realist artist Georges Bellows. In 1913 he visited the influential show of International Art at the Armory, Lexington Avenue, New York and began painting in a Cubist style. He met Marcel Duchamp two years later and the French artist introduced him to Andre Breton and the Surrealist circle in Paris. He moved to Europe in 1921 and became a key participant in the movement as a fashionable portraitist, pioneer of photographic techniques and maker of surrealist objects. L’ENIGME D’ISIDORE DUCASSE 1920 Material: Sewing Machine, wool and string Dimensions: 355 x 605 x 355mm Isidore Ducasse was a nineteenth century author who wrote under the pseudonym, Compte de Lautréamont. Man Ray was inspired by his simile: ‘as beautiful as a

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chance meeting, on a dissecting table, of a sewing machine and an umbrella,’ a phrase that appealed to the Surrealist’s love of combining unlikely objects or images. The word ‘enigma’ also alludes to the titles of Giorgio de Chirico’s paintings which contained unusual, often disturbing groupings of animate and inanimate items in stage-like settings.

exhibition at the Moderna Museet, Stockholm. In 1972 he authorised this replica, made by his assistant Lucien Trellard using a Pfaff sewing machine from the 1920s that belonged to his wife’s grandmother, and a blanket and string found in the artist’s studio (which has subsequently been replaced). The resulting work, according to Trellard, is closer to the original than any other existing replica.

This enigmatic object, consisting of a real sewing machine wrapped in a blanket, encapsulated the Surrealists’ vision of the uncanny as an ordinary, everyday object taken into a new realm, beyond rational apprehension and normality. Salvador Dalí specifically referred to its unsettling presence when writing about the early days of the movement: ‘The semi-darkness of the first phase of surrealist experiment would disclose …a shape wrapped up and tied with string… unidentifiable, having seemed very disturbing in one of Man ray’s photographs.’

Despite Man Ray’s status as one of the key figures of Surrealist movement, his sculpture is not widely known. This is partly due to his greater fame as a pioneering photographer but also due to the fact that many of his early works were lost or destroyed. Some of his sculptures were made specifically as subjects for his photography and then discarded. As with the work of his friend Duchamp, some objects were later recreated during the 1960s and 1970s, as a result of increased commercial interest.

The original object, now lost, was exhibited in the 1936 Exposition Surrealiste d’Objets at the Charles Ratton Gallery, Paris. In 1969 a copy was made with the artist’s permission for an

MAN RAY L’ENIGME D’ISIDORE DUCASSE 1920

GLOSSARY

ACTIVITIES FIND OUT ABOUT: • Surrealism – what is it? When and where did this art movement develop? Who were the key artists? Find examples of work by Dali, Magritte, Ernst etc. Discover other works by Man Ray. MAKE: • A wrapped object – do not reveal its identity until after other students have made sketches or paintings and attempted to guess what it is. Talk about wrapped objects in art – eg Magritte, Christo, Beuys etc. • A surrealist still life using an unexpected combination of objects – look at other works by Man Ray for inspiration. Take photographs and make sketches of your composition.

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WRITE: • A mystery story using the title ‘The Enigma of Isidore Ducasse’ and taking an image of this work as its starting point. What is hidden beneath the wrapping? Why is it tied up? Who is it for? Who is Isidore Ducasse? DISCUSS: • The use of everyday objects in art. How can an artist justify using an object that he/she has not made as a sculpture? Find other examples of ‘found objects’ on display in the gallery. • Wrapping, packaging and displaying objects in everyday life. What does a wrapper tell you about a product? What does it disguise? Would you buy chocolate wrapped in plastic or vegetables packed in coloured foil? Invent new ways of packaging products and everyday shopping items.

Surrealism movement launched in 1924 in Paris by Andre Breton, strongly influenced by the theories of Sigmund Freud. Its aim was to reveal the unconscious and to reconcile it with rational life. FURTHER RESOURCES Neil Baldwin, Man Ray: American Artist, Da Capo Press (2nd edition) 2001 Man Ray, Self-Portrait, Penguin Classics, 2012 http://tour.boijmans.nl/en/33/ http://www.manraytrust.com/ https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=sGArcwGJts0

HENRI MATISSE THE INATTENTIVE READER 1919

For an image of this work, see: http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/ matisse-the-inattentive-reader-n05141 ‘What I dream of is an art of balance, of purity, of serenity, devoid of troubling or depressing subject matter... a soothing, calming influence on the mind, something like a good armchair which provides relaxation from physical fatigue.’ Henri Matisse HENRI MATISSE (1869-1954) One of the most influential artists of the modern era, Matisse was associated with expressive use of colour. He studied at the Academie Julian, Paris and initially painted in a traditional style, influenced by artists such as Chardin and Poussin. Following his discovery of Van Gogh and Paul Signac, he began to experiment with colour and with Andre Derain became the leader of a shortlived movement known as Fauvism (1904-8). These artists, whose name literally meant ‘wild beasts’, emphasised painterly qualities and the use of strong, emotional colour over representational values.

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Influenced by his travels to North Africa in the years leading up to the First World War, Matisse began to incorporate sinuous, decorative line and the bold, un-modulated tones of Moorish art into his painting of this period. He met Pablo Picasso in 1906 and the two became lifelong friends and rivals. THE INATTENTIVE READER 1919 Matisse painted this work at the Hôtel de la Méditerranée, Nice where he regularly spent the winter months alone in order to devote himself to his work. In a letter home, he announced to his wife, ‘I’m the hermit of the Promenade des Anglais.’ His hotel room became his living quarters, studio and setting for many of the interior scenes he produced during his stay with its recognisable décor and furniture. Many of his Nice paintings featured a woman before an open window which allowed the landscape to become part of the composition. Here, however, the shutters are closed to create a more intimate, enclosed space and the pastel colours contribute to the delicate, feminine environment. The distracted reader assumes the head-in-hand pose traditionally associated with melancholy

and Matisse uses details in the room such as the mirror and flowers as reminders of the transience of youth and beauty. Though Matisse’s paintings of women in interiors were highly sensual, he claimed that the intensity of feelings was expressed solely in colour and line and that he never entered into relationships with his models. His objectivity is perhaps emphasised by the mask-like faces of his women who are often similar in appearance. The sitter for this painting was probably 19 year old Antoinette Arnoud, a chic and slender professional model who posed for him exclusively for the following two years.

HENRI MATISSE THE INATTENTIVE READER 1919

FURTHER RESOURCES

ACTIVITIES FIND OUT ABOUT: • Colour theory – which colours do you associate with certain moods or emotions? Carry out a survey with other students to see which colours they assign to ‘anger’, ‘sadness’, ‘joy’, peacefulness’ etc. • Interiors in art – look at rooms in the work of Vermeer, Morrisot, Van Gogh, Hockney etc What do their rooms tell you about the inhabitants? What does your room say about you? MAKE: • Model/Painting of a room from all sides. You could design an interior or make a scale model of a room in your home. • Imagine what the rest of Matisse’s room could look like. Examine other paintings of the interior in Nice (see links below) to help you construct an image of the room. Draw a map, floor plan or construct a 3D model.

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http://www.artgalleryabc.com/images/ matisse14.JPG http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Ew2wkBB1xpI/ UCGZBAHRbpI/AAAAAAAAFM8/ bK2WZF_Kjm4/s1600/mfa29.jpg http://neoalchemist.files.wordpress. com/2012/09/henri-matisse-nice-cahier- noir.jpg http://www.henry-matisse.com/nice.jpg DISCUSS: • Matisse’s use of colour – why pink, blue and grey? What impact would other colours have? (You could try painting black and white print-outs of Matisse works with different colour schemes)

Xavier Girard, Matisse in Nice, Thames and Hudson, 1996 Sophie Goodwin, Henri Matisse and his Women before the Window: A Consideration of his Nice-Period Painting, LAP Lambert Academic Publishing, 2012 Hilary Spurling, Matisse: The Life, Penguin 2009 https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=tvbik7GRxgw https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=MiEIeitUNFs https://www.youtube.com/ watch?NR=1&v=Be2LBRck0U&feature=endscreen

BARBARA HEPWORTH SINGLE FORM (EIKON) 1937–8, CAST 1963

© Bowness, Hepworth Estate

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BARBARA HEPWORTH SINGLE FORM (EIKON) 1937–8, CAST 1963

‘I rarely draw what I see. I draw what I feel in my body.’ Barbara Hepworth DAME BARBARA HEPWORTH (1903-1975) Barbara Hepworth was born in Wakefield and trained at Leeds School of Art before a scholarship enabled her to study at the Royal College of Art, London where Henry Moore was also a student. The fellow Yorkshire artists became leading figures in the ‘new movement’ associated with direct carving. By the mid 1930s, Hepworth had turned from carving semi-naturalistic figures and began to explore pure sculptural forms. She met Ben Nicholson in 1931 and together they visited the Parisian studios of Arp, Brancusi, Mondrian and Picasso. With Henry Moore they established links with the European avant-garde and were pioneers of abstract art in Britain. Hepworth has written that her interest in the 1930s was centred on the relationship between form and its surrounding space as well as its integral scale, texture and mass. Her sculpture, however, almost always retained an organic character relating to landscape and natural forms. During the Second World War she was

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evacuated to Cornwall with Nicholson and their children. She eventually established her own studio in St Ives which was designated the Barbara Hepworth Museum following her death and is now part of Tate St Ives. SINGLE FORM (EIKON) 1937-8, CAST 1963 Material: Bronze Dimensions: 1480 x 280 x 320mm, 77kg Eikon: Greek word for image (alternative spelling of ‘icon’): ‘a person or thing that is uncritically adored, revered or admired, or is regarded as a symbol of a particular culture or sphere, etc; an idol’ (Chambers Dictionary) In the late 1930s, Hepworth made a number of sculptures based on a single figure, influenced by carvings of non-western culture, particularly Pharaonic Egypt and Africa. These upright forms were established as a major theme in her work during this period and they became increasingly abstract and totemic in character. Hepworth later claimed that they had been created with the landscape in mind and that another possible influence was the menhirs or standing stones of ancient Britain. The original version of this sculpture was

carved in plaster and set into a wooden base. This was exhibited in Paris at an undisclosed venue in 1938. Metal was scarce for sculptors during the war and so this work was not cast into the more durable material of bronze until 1963. Hepworth had an edition of seven made, one of which was given to Tate. A similar work Single Form 1937-8 was carved from holly wood and is now in the collection of Leeds City Art Gallery. The single form in Hepworth’s work contains the elegance and serenity of a silent figure, suggested by the title, Eikon. As with most of Hepworth’s works, there is a definite front face to this tall shaft raised on its plinth. The shaft is essentially triangular in plan, although the sides curve outwards and the back is quite rounded, especially at the base. The subtle modulation of this form focuses attention on the smooth surface of the material which is contrasted with the deliberate roughness of the base. This texture reproduces the deeply chiselled gouges in the wooden block on which the original was mounted. The plaster version also had a stippled blue colouration which was replaced by the green patina of the bronze edition.

BARBARA HEPWORTH SINGLE FORM (EIKON) 1937–8, CAST 1963

ACTIVITIES FIND OUT ABOUT: • Different ways of making sculpture – eg carving, modelling, casting, assembling etc • Abstract and figurative art – what do these terms mean? Could Hepworth’s work be described as abstract or does it relate to the human body? • Barbara Hepworth – what else did she make? What materials did she use? What techniques did she employ? Where can you see other examples of her work? Visit Tate St Ives and the Barbara Hepworth Museum and Sculpture Garden! MAKE: • Detailed drawings of Hepworth’s Single Form (Eikon) from different viewpoints. This helps you to understand the subtleties of form, texture and materials and the relationship between the sculpture and its surrounding space. • Maquettes in clay or plaster for your own

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‘single forms’. Look at columns, monoliths and ancient standing stones for inspiration or you could base your sculpture on a standing figure. • Rubbings from natural forms such as tree trunks, rocks, shells etc or press these materials into clay in order to create interesting textures for your own abstract designs. DISCUSS: • The influence of landscape on Hepworth’s art. What does her sculpture remind you of? How does nature erode and shape rocks, beaches, trees etc. What shapes do you find in natural forms such as shells, plants, driftwood, bones etc. • The use of different materials in sculpture. Why is bronze preferred to plaster for public works? What is patina? How are carved or modelled works cast into bronze? (For casting, see: https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPgEIM- NbhQ

BARBARA HEPWORTH SINGLE FORM (EIKON) 1937–8, CAST 1963

GLOSSARY

FURTHER RESOURCES

Maquette Model made for a larger work of sculpture

Penelope Curtis, Barbara Hepworth (St Ives Artists), Tate Publishing 1998

Patina A distinct green or brown surface layer on bronze sculpture which can be created naturally by the oxidising effect of the atmosphere or artificially by the application of chemicals.

Matthew Gale and Chris Stephens, Barbara Hepworth: Works in the Tate Collection and the Barbara Hepworth Museum St Ives, Tate Publishing, 2001 Barbara Hepworth, A Pictorial Autobiography, Tate Publishing, 1985 http://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=8PPM8foaH_k http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qt9zRzJguc http://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=BYJkUuaEGpk http://www.tate.org.uk/visit/tate-st-ives/ barbara-hepworth-museum

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JACKSON POLLOCK SUMMERTIME: NUMBER 9A 1948

© Pollock – Krasner foundation, Inc.

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JACKSON POLLOCK SUMMERTIME: NUMBER 9A 1948

‘The modern artist.. is working and expressing an inner world – in other words – expressing the energy, the motion, and other inner forces.’ JACKSON POLLOCK (1912-1956) Born in Cody, Wyoming and brought up in Arizona and California, Pollock moved to New York to study art with Thomas Benton. His early works were influenced by the Mexican mural painters and Picasso and were characterised by turbulent movement and an aggressive use of line and colour. 1938-42, he was employed by the WPA Federal Art Project as an easel painter. Following the Second World War, he began to work in an abstract ‘all-over’ style which was given the name American Abstract Expressionism. His gestural process of painting was inspired partly by the sand painting of indigenous Americans and partly by automatic writing and drawing techniques of the Surrealists. SUMMERTIME: NUMBER 9A 1948 Materials: Oil Paint, enamel paint and commercial paint on canvas

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In 1945, Pollock moved from New York City to a converted barn on Long Island, without heating or lighting. In this vast space he abandoned traditional painting techniques and developed his now famous process of dripping and pouring paint onto canvas that was laid flat on the floor. This method enabled him to find a direct means of expression through the unconscious rhythms he created as he walked around the ‘arena’ of his painting. Pollock described his way of working: ‘My painting does not come from the easel. I hardly ever stretch my canvas before painting. I prefer to tack the unstretched canvas to the hard wall or floor. I need the resistance of a hard surface. On the floor I am more at ease. I feel nearer, more a part of the painting, since this way I can walk around it, work from the four sides and literally be in the painting.’ For Pollock, the artistic process was a physical, gestural action driven by creative impulses, involving his whole body rather than movements of the wrist. According to the artist, he would enter a trance-like state when in his painting: ‘I’m not aware of what

I am doing.’ He also explained that ‘the painting has a life of its own’ and that form of the final work is dictated by the materials – the rhythms of the paint and the dense layers of its trails across the surface of the canvas. It is a process led by intuition rather than a premeditated image. Summertime seems to express the expansive scale of the American landscape which Pollock had experienced by driving coast-to-coast as a young man. Its dancing rhythms evoke the atmosphere and cycles of nature in the summer. The layer of grey paint which appears to have been applied first resembles a frieze of lively figures running across the canvas.

JACKSON POLLOCK SUMMERTIME: NUMBER 9A 1948

GLOSSARY

ACTIVITIES FIND OUT ABOUT: • American Abstract Expressionism – when did this movement develop? Who were the key artists? What did they paint? Find out about the different techniques that artists such as Rothko, de Kooning, Motherwell, Kline etc employed. • Pollock’s technique – watch the videos by Hans Namuth to see the artist in action. MAKE: • A drip painting using layers of carefully controlled trails of paint. Work to rhythms – play music while you paint to help you (eg songs with ‘summer’ in the title) • Automatic drawing or painting – switch off mentally and let the unconscious rhythms of your pen or brush dictate the form of your abstract work

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• An abstract painting with the title ‘autumn’,’winter’ or ‘spring’ in the style ofJackson Pollock. Think about colours and forms that could suggest these seasons. Try dripping different materials such as acrylic paint, ink, watercolours, coffee… DISCUSS: • The differences between Pollock’s form of abstract art and say, Mondrian or Kandinsky. What is abstract art?

American Abstract Expressionism term applied to forms of non-figurative art developed by artists based in New York in the 1940s and 1950s. They were inspired by the Surrealist idea that art should spring from the unconscious mind, often using sweeping gestural marks and were led by Pollock and de Kooning. Also known as the New York School. FURTHER RESOURCES Carolyn Lanchner, Jackson Pollock (MoMA Artist Series) The Museum Of Modern Art, New York, 2009 Jeremy Lewison, Interpreting Pollock, Tate Publishing 1999 http://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=6cgBvpjwOGo http://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=C4NQ4uBnXhk

CONSTELLATIONS TEACHERS PACK – EVALUATION

Please could you take a few minutes to complete the following evaluation form and return to us via the email/postal address at the bottom. All returned forms will enter a prize draw for a whole class artist-led workshop in the Constellations Display in July 2014. On a scale of 1-5 (1 being very easy and 5 being very difficult), how easy was it to find the resource on the website?

In what ways did you use the pack during the following: Before your visit to the above exhibition?

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During your Visit?

Did the pack help to achieve any of the above? If yes, how? If no, why not?

After your visit?

What is the age of your group? How appropriate were the suggested activities?

What were your learning objectives for the visit?

On a scale of 1–5 (1 being very useful and 5 being not very useful) how useful was the pack for you and why?

What aspects did you find most useful and why?