Live Auction 20th Century Evening Sale. Lot 21 C. Property from a Prominent Collection. Executed in Roy J. Friedman, Chicago Anon. O'Connor and E. Thaw, eds. Brought to you by. EKaplan christies. Painted in a flurry of brilliant artistic activity toward the end of , Number 31 bears witness to Pollock in full command of his medium. Pollock painted only thirteen of these drip paintings on paper in —which he then mounted onto Masonite, composition board and canvas—and only eight of them display the gleaming, metallic paint that he employs in Number In November of , Pollock exhibited Number 31, along with others from the series, with his new dealer Betty Parsons.
Coates, The New Yorker, December 3, Demonstrating an abundance of joyous and celebratory hues, Number 31 is an explosion of riotous color that is held in taut suspension on the surface of the picture plane. Like the swirling form of some distant supernova, bursts of bright white light flicker in and out of the colorful sprays and skeins of paint, while alternating layers of bright red, emerald green, turquoise, yellow, and orange comprise a veritable rainbow effect.
Everything is accentuated with the silver metallic paint that Pollock used in only eight paintings of the series. Number 31 exists in a wondrous state of immediacy, as if Pollock has just stepped away from the painting mere moments ago.
His paintings could now be found in five major museums and in the homes of forty prominent collectors. After two years of intensively developing his drip method, Pollock had, by the time Number 31 was painted, truly mastered the process. As a result, the years and saw the artist engage in a bevy of new paintings.
He produced so much new work that Betty Parsons gave him two separate exhibits in alone. The second show, opening on November 21, , consisted of recent drip paintings completed that year, with Number 31 among them. He exploded the easel painting, the wall painting. Parsons, quoted in L. A few months earlier, the August 8th issue of LIFE Magazine had devoted a two-page centerfold to Pollock, illustrating several recent drip paintings—including the ft long Number Nine—along with a photograph of the brooding artist leaning casually against his work.
