Where to See Summertime: Number 9A: Tate Modern, London

Jackson Pollock produced this Summertime: Number 9A in 1948, one of his first monumental drip paintings. The elongated canvas (over 5.5 meters wide) unfurls like a frieze. Black and tan skeins of paint dance across the creamy beige background.

The title suggests seasonal exuberance and rhythm. Pollock worked on the floor, moving around the canvas, dripping and flinging paint from sticks and hardened brushes. He called this "action painting." The continuous horizontal format anticipates later "all-over" compositions. It hangs at Tate Modern.

Pollock laid the unstretched canvas on the floor and dripped, flung, and poured paint from above. He moved around the canvas, creating an all-over rhythm without compositional focus.

The 5.5-meter width creates a frieze-like experience. Viewers can't take it in at once. They must scan across, experiencing the painting as temporal sequence like music.

Jackson Pollock the elongated canvas (over 5.5 meters wide) unfurls like a frieze. The work is executed in oil and enamel on canvas.

Summertime: Number 9A

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More by Jackson Pollock

One: Number 31, 1950

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The Three Dancers

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