Number 1, 1950 (Lavender Mist)

Jackson Pollock’s Number 1, 1950 (Lavender Mist) makes a large painting feel extraordinarily fine-grained. The National Gallery of Art records oil, enamel and aluminium on canvas, measuring 221 × 299.7 centimetres; framed, 223.5 × 302.3 × 3.8 centimetres. Colour gathers into atmosphere. ^[1]

The year is essential to its identity. Number 1A, 1948, at the Museum of Modern Art, is a separate painting, originally called Number 1, 1948. MoMA explains that Pollock added the letter to distinguish it from more recent work. Its handprints offer a useful connection with Lavender Mist, although recognising a shared device does not make the pictures interchangeable. Number, year and collection belong together when identifying these works: a bare “Number One” can easily lead a reader to the wrong canvas. ^[2]

A colour that gathers between colours

The National Gallery describes black, white, blue, silver, russet and orange, with passages registering as pale salmon, teal and steel gray. Crowded marks become less dense toward the edges, inviting attention to changes across the field. ^[1]

Clement Greenberg suggested the atmospheric title. In Alex Dean’s account for the National Gallery, the lavender effect emerges from layered colours; the museum describes no lavender paint. The name directs attention toward an overall sensation. Dean also connects Pollock’s experiments with Siqueiros’s 1936 New York workshop and Janet Sobel’s allover painting in the following decade. Lavender Mist developed within a history of experiments with flowing paint and distributed composition. ^[3]

Dean identifies long streaks beside minute daubs and trickles, exposed canvas deliberately retained, handprints, a cigarette butt and an embedded insect. The insect’s presence is established; a suggestion that Pollock dragged it through paint remains a question. Tiny orange flecks probably came from another painting nearby. These particulars invite changes of attention, from extended movement to a tiny deposit. They also leave room for incidental material within a carefully developed surface. ^[3]

Pressing, pouring and revising

James Coddington’s technical study identifies full-width fabric, blue side selvages and tack holes through paint on all four edges: evidence of earlier direct tacking, with added canvas needed for wrapping. A thin white ground, possibly rolled, remains visible near the upper edge. Brushwork, hands and tube-squeezed paint followed. Flattened squeezes with spreading tendrils suggest a board; fabric impressions and transferred residual paint document further contact. Two whites distinguished under ultraviolet light absorb later paint differently: later colours bleed into one while sitting more firmly upon the other. ^[4]

Coddington also describes local black and blue washes, exceptionally thin, alongside longer pours. Later matte beige partly suppresses earlier passages while providing absorbent ground for subsequent paint, producing shallow spatial shifts. He proposes sprayed varnish or a similar medium in some areas, possibly supplying tooth, glaze or tone beneath later marks. The spray remains a qualified hypothesis; its purpose is uncertain. These observations make the painting’s delicacy inseparable from work close to the surface. ^[4]

Pollock’s earlier statement “My Painting” offers a practical context for that closeness. He described the floor as allowing him to move around a canvas and work from four sides. His phrase “more a part of the painting” expresses proximity as an active working condition. ^[5]

Moving between the surface and the whole

Curator Harry Cooper’s National Gallery transcript offers two approaches: follow the painter’s bodily gestures, or attend to the optical experience of the finished picture on a wall. Materials and atmosphere can enrich each other. ^[1]

Charles Stuckey, writing about One: Number 31, 1950, considers the viewer’s freedom to move closer, farther away and from side to side. That is useful advice for approaching Lavender Mist. Start with the full rectangle; allow time for a particular passage; then return to the larger field. There need be no single distance at which every relationship becomes clear. A detail may absorb attention without becoming the permanent centre of the composition. Stuckey also reminds readers that paintings worked on the floor were made for walls, and places their scale within Pollock’s long engagement with mural painting. The change from working position to viewing position belongs to the encounter with the finished picture. His account supplies another helpful caution: the numbered titles do not give a reliable making sequence. Number 32 preceded Number 31, which preceded Number 30. “Number 1” should therefore never be treated as a simple chronological starting signal. ^[6]

Kirk Varnedoe’s comparison of the large paintings of 1950 sharpens what is particular here. He distinguishes the forceful black drawing of Number 32, the denser curves of One, and the more open, articulated rhythms of Autumn Rhythm: Number 30. Against those immense canvases, he places Lavender Mist’s smaller-scale interlacing earlier in the year. Physical size and intensity of surface are different matters. His wider discussion of poured line attends to changes in thickness, bleeding edges, relief, puddles and splashes. Such differences offer a more useful vocabulary than calling every mark a drip. They encourage the reader to notice how one material event becomes another: a line acquires breadth, a run meets a pool, or an edge becomes soft. The comparison also helps explain why several paintings made within the same broad method can create distinct experiences of rhythm and space. ^[7]

A delicate painting in a disputed exhibition

Pollock exhibited at Betty Parsons Gallery from 28 November to 16 December 1950. Francis V. O’Connor’s catalogue records thirty-two works, including Lavender Mist and the three great numbered canvases. The surviving responses reveal disagreement about what such paintings offered. Howard Devree questioned their content and likened the viewer’s search for meaning to imagining forms in wallpaper. Belle Krasne responded enthusiastically to the colour, scale and complicated surfaces. An unsigned Compass review admired the visual excitement while questioning its limits. These were arguments about the show, rather than separate verdicts on Lavender Mist. O’Connor also records that the Art News editorial staff ranked the exhibition among the three outstanding solo shows, placing Pollock between John Marin and Alberto Giacometti. The history becomes clearer when these responses remain together: doubt, pleasure and substantial professional recognition were all present at the same moment. ^[8]

Robert Coates’s 9 December review was particularly attentive to differences within the exhibition. He found excessive elaboration in Numbers 30 and 31, yet singled out the “lacy and delicate No. 1” as a welcome change in Pollock’s colour sequence. He also contrasted other works with the bold black of Number 32. His response gives Lavender Mist a specific contemporary place: a painting whose delicacy could persuade a critic who remained dissatisfied with neighbouring canvases. Close distinctions among individual works were already part of the critical encounter. ^[5]

A collector’s commitment

Gail Levin places Alfonso Ossorio’s collecting within a sustained relationship with both Pollock and Lee Krasner. His purchase of Number 5 in 1949 preceded their personal friendship. Later support included access to his New York townhouse and an offer of monthly advance payments toward another Pollock. According to Levin, Lavender Mist, bought for $1,500, was the only painting to sell from the 1950 exhibition. Her account helps explain how a celebrated exhibition could still leave the artist dependent on a small circle of committed buyers. Ossorio was also a practising artist, interested in the organisation and physical components of Pollock’s work. His patronage extended to Krasner’s paintings. The purchase belongs to a network of artistic exchange and practical support. ^[9]

Edward F. Dragon and Ossorio purchased the painting through Betty Parsons in 1951. The National Gallery acquired it through Thomas Gibson Fine Art in 1976, with the Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund: accession 1976.37.1. ^[1]