Autumn Rhythm (Number 30)

The Met acquired this monumental "drip" painting by Pollock in 1957, the year following the artist’s unexpected death—a sign of how quickly his reinvention of painting was accepted into the canon of modern art. However revolutionary in technique, Pollock’s large-scale work was rooted in the muralism of the 1930s, including the art of Thomas Hart Benton (see America Today, MMA 2012.478a–j) and David Alfaro Siqueiros, both of whom he had worked alongside. Pollock proclaimed in 1947: "I intend to paint large movable pictures which will function between the easel and the mural. . . . the tendency of modern feeling is towards the wall picture or mural." This work’s title suggests not only the month in which he painted it (October), but also an alignment with nature’s constant flux.