Jackson sucking on that
Several years back—I’m too lazy to look it up—there were some paintings discovered in an attic that looked like Jackson Pollack’s work, and there was a lot of circumstantial evidence (location, age, chemical signatures of pigments and canvas) to make that supposition plausible. I have a vague impression that after further analysis it was concluded that circa 1950 some painter, having taken note of all the ink that had been spilled on JP’s paint, thought, “hell, I can do that!” and spattered accordingly. The identity of the unknown artist was not established, but no imputation of attempted fraud was made. It amuses me, though, to think (and I do not propose to weigh in here on the merits of Pollack’s corpus) that had the paintings been “authenticated” they would have been worth millions—as imitations, not so much, and this does seem to suggest that celebrity trumps artistry in this instance.
cordially,
cordially,
