There’s no word to cover what’s out there about the man who’s been called America’s premier Abstract Expressionist, but there should be: “Pollockiana.” There are Jackson Pollock biopics, documentaries, jazz albums of his favorite pieces, even dance workshops that would imitate his gestural movements with brushes and paint cans. And now, 60 years after his death, along comes something truly different: a surprising book, a collection of recipes, hitherto unpublished. They range from appetizers to desserts that Pollock and his wife, the artist Lee Krasner, loved to make at their farmhouse home overlooking Accabonac Harbor in Springs, Long Island, where Pollock lived the last 11 years of his life. The book is called Dinner With Jackson Pollock: Recipes, Art & Nature, and it features Pollock not as bad-boy drunk but as a gardener, fisherman, baker, dinner party host.
The book is a feast for the eyes, a handsome volume of mostly color photographs, with brief text, of paints and painting, food and recipes, Jackson and Lee lovingly cooking in their kitchen. There are also photos of the house in all seasons, and shots of gatherings of fellow artists, family and friends. The book complements the image of Pollock most people have –the drunken, destructive, angry narcissist Ed Harris depicted in the 2000-Oscar-nominated film, Pollock. Here’s a domestic Jackson, a man who took delight – and time and care - to cook, many of the recipes his mother’s, from his childhood. And lo! they work. One year at the Springs Fisherman’s Fair, Pollock’s Apple Pie won first prize. And recently, the award-winning executive chef at East Hampton’s 1770 House, who tested the recipes, put Pollock’s Cherry Upside Down cake on the menu.
The book came about by chance. Robyn Lea, an internationally known Australian born commercial photographer, was on a shoot at Pollock Krasner House, interested in the artist who had become an icon in Australia in 1973 when his painting, Blue Poles was purchased by the Australian National Gallery for $1.3 million, a “scandal” at the time. Casually, the director of the Pollock Krasner House, Helen Harrison, mentioned that she came across some food-stained recipes. Together, they found more. And the author was on her way to introducing Pollock to the world as a “talented cook” whose wife went from not knowing how to boil water to being a “strategic” hostess who understood “the power of a dinner party.”
The author’s theme of the interconnectedness of art, nature and food is seen in the book’s arrangement of juxtaposed images -- Oven Baked Stuffed Onions across from a shot of Pollock’s studio floor that looks like one of his paintings; a photo of layers of sand and snow in the area that could be taken as a close up of the Banana Cream Cake on the facing page. Dinner With Jackson Pollock is unique and impressive.
Joan Baum is a book critic who lives in Springs, Long Island. You can read her article on Dinner With Jackson Pollock in the Sag Harbor Express.
