Untitled, c.1949: Green Silver and Its Surface

Jackson Pollock’s Untitled, about 1949, is the painting also known as Green Silver: Guggenheim accession 2004.63, credited as the gift of Sylvia and Joseph Slifka. Our Green Silver guide introduces its composition and public history. Here, the same object raises another absorbing question: how do its materials and subsequent care affect what we can distinguish? ^[1]

Paper beneath the paint

Paper has a substantial place in this painting’s documented history. In Francis V. O’Connor’s 1967 Pollock catalogue, entry 147 identifies Green Silver as enamel and aluminium paint on paper mounted on canvas, then belonging to Mr and Mrs Joseph Slifka. The entry helps explain why a work associated with poured painting also belongs in a discussion of Pollock’s works on paper. Its support and the character of its painted marks answer different questions. The record describes a sheet carrying paint and mounted on another material; calling it a painting on paper acknowledges that layered construction. Its status as a painting remains compatible with its paper support. ^[2]

Bernice Rose’s 1980 Drawing into Painting preserves the paper mounted on canvas description and identifies the work as catalogue raisonné number 238. This cross-reference is useful when following a painting whose familiar colour name can appear in parentheses and whose other title is simply Untitled. It binds the discussion to a particular object across different publications. ^[3]

The 2016 Palazzo Strozzi caption again describes paper mounted on canvas, giving dimensions of 57.8 × 78.1 centimetres. These measurements place the work within reach of sustained, intimate attention: a reader need not imagine the enormous scale of Pollock’s mural paintings to take its painted surface seriously. Its modest dimensions make the relationship between the sheet and the materials upon it an especially useful starting point. ^[4]

There is a genuine discrepancy to retain. The Guggenheim’s 2020 exhibition label describes alkyd enamel, oil and aluminium paint on board. That differs from the earlier paper mounted on canvas wording. The dated records establish a difference in description; they do not establish when, whether or why the physical mounting changed. A remounting story would require further evidence. ^{[1] [4]}

What the paint names tell us

A little terminology helps separate colour from paint composition. MoMA defines a binder as the material that holds pigment together and gives paint a consistent body. Its definition of alkyd enamel describes a commercial paint based on chemically modified linseed oil, drying quickly to a hard finish that is often glossy. Enamel is a broader term for fluid paint formulated to dry hard and glossy. These definitions explain why two passages can differ in behaviour as well as hue. They do not identify the manufacturer of a particular Pollock paint. MoMA’s definition of allover painting is similarly helpful: it concerns the attention and significance given throughout a composition. It does not demand a uniform material covering every part of the support. ^[5]

Gillian McMillan’s 2005 conservation account describes this painting on paper mounted on canvas. Sample analysis identified oil and alkyd paints. Although generally in good condition, it carried dirt that distorted colour and flattened depth. Curators, conservators and scholars discussed cleaning, an irreversible intervention. Matte, porous paint retained more grime than glossy, medium-rich passages. ^[6]

One grey paint presented a particular problem: a reaction between zinc oxide pigment and oil binder produced material that migrated to the surface. Sticky, dirt-retaining and darkening brown, it obscured the grey beneath. Part of the discolouration therefore originated within the paint. McMillan reports that treatment took several days and recovered distinctions between two silver paints and two blacks, including glossy and matte black. Her account makes surface difference central to looking: the treatment restored legibility to relationships already present in the painting. Its outcome concerned depth and tonal discrimination as much as brightness. ^[6]

Shine, colour and depth

Other Pollocks help explain why appearance alone cannot identify a paint recipe. In his conservation essay “No Chaos Damn It,” James Coddington discusses the conspicuously glossy white tube paint of White Light. Analysis identified oil paint, apparently with added damar varnish; whether that formulation was commercial or specially mixed remained uncertain. The example separates a material finding from a proposed explanation of how the artist obtained it. Coddington also describes different-looking paint in Convergence, while explicitly stating that technical analysis had not been performed on that work. A glossy appearance invites investigation, and a successful test answers a particular question about a particular painting. These other works provide comparisons, without supplying a recipe for Green Silver. ^[7]

Rose offers a complementary way of thinking about the viewing experience. In her account of Pollock’s space, reflected light, tonal relationships and the physical character of grounds work together. Silver can contribute an atmospheric effect, while the eye’s response helps create a sensation of shimmer. This is a critical explanation of how paintings operate optically. Applied cautiously here, it gives a reason to attend to differences in reflection alongside differences in colour. Depth in a Pollock need not resemble the view through a painted window; the relationship between a material surface and the space we perceive can itself hold our attention. ^[3]

Pollock’s interview with William Wright, recorded in 1950, provides an artist’s perspective on this relationship between means and results. Asked about liquid paint and control, he described experience as enabling him to govern its flow. He also spoke of having a general notion of the result while the work was being created. Discovery and deliberate practice belong together in this account. His remarks concern his approach broadly; they are no diary of the making of this sheet. They help us approach Pollock’s technique as a developing engagement with materials, while keeping later scientific findings and the artist’s own explanations distinct. ^[8]

A painting on paper in public

The exhibition No Limits, Just Edges gave works on paper a broad historical setting. Its Venice presentation in 2005 brought together fifty-one works spanning Pollock’s career. The Peggy Guggenheim Collection’s archive places these within an output of approximately seven hundred works on paper. It also recalls that his first solo exhibition in 1943 included both paintings and drawings. Smaller works could sell more readily, but the museum’s account also stresses the artistic importance Pollock assigned to both paper and canvas. That distinction between practical circumstances and artistic value matters here. A sheet’s manageable size may affect its circulation, yet size and support alone cannot tell us whether it was conceived as preparation for something else. The exhibition’s argument invites viewers to give these objects sustained attention in their own right. ^[9]

For this particular painting, the connection to the exhibition is unusually concrete. Thomas Krens’s catalogue preface states that the donation of Untitled (Green Silver) partly inspired No Limits, Just Edges. The same preface acknowledges McMillan’s conservation treatment. Acquisition, care and renewed public attention thus meet in the documented history of one object. The exhibition travelled through Berlin and Venice in 2005 before reaching New York in 2006; the preface presents its focus on paper as an opportunity to expand audiences’ understanding of Pollock beyond his famous large canvases. Within that setting, attending to the physical sheet, the variety of its paints and the distinctions viewers can recover becomes part of understanding what a Pollock painting can be. ^[10]