Who the #$&% Is Jackson Pollock? - © 2006 Picturehouse
Get ready for the newest Polk Museum of Art series: Cinéma Art Historique! This free-admission film series is designed to explore the connections between art history and cinema. After each screening, enjoy a Q&A and discussion with Dr. Alex Rich, Executive Director and Chief Curator, about how the evening's film aligns with the histories and stories it strives to tell.
Next up in the series: Who the #$&% is Jackson Pollock? (2006). Truck driver Teri Horton asked this very question when she was told that a thrift shop painting she bought for $5 might actually be an unknown work by Pollock. In this engaging (and funny) documentary, filmmaker Henry Moses introduces us to Horton and her search for answers, while exploring the world of art —and the controversy behind how art is bought, sold, and authenticated.
Registration is required, and space is limited. All attendees must wear face masks throughout the program per FSC guidelines. The film screening and Q&A will be held in the Polk Museum of Art's Auditorium.
Registration is required, and space is limited. All attendees must wear face masks throughout the program per FSC guidelines.
About the Film
Filmmaker Harry Moses offers humorous and revealing insight into the art authentication process in America by documenting the remarkable tale of a seventy-three-year old former long haul trucker who was snubbed by the art establishment after purchasing a Jackson Pollock painting for five dollars at a local thrift shop. When Teri Horton purchased a painting by one of the Twentieth Century's most respected abstract expressionist artists, she never suspected that she would find herself struggling against some of the most powerful figures in the world of art. Despite hiring a forensic scientist who discovered that a fingerprint on the back of the painting's canvas proved a positive match with a fingerprint discovered on a can of paint in Pollock's studio, and that the paint itself matched a can of pain found on Pollock's studio floor, Horton was inexplicably snubbed when the art establishment proclaimed that the painting which should have fetched upwards of $50 million was completely worthless. In the fifteen years that followed, the ageing woman with only an eighth grade education would embark on an arduous uphill battle against the elitists of the art world that would forever reveals the secrets of just how art is purchased and sold in modern day America.