Guardians of the Secret
JACKSON POLLOCK
JACKSON POLLOCK, 1943
A seminal early work by Pollock, Guardians of the Secret was a synthesis of disparate influences into a supremely modern work. Long inspired by the Native American art that he saw as a child growing up in the American West, Pollock visited the Indian Art Exhibition at MOMA with his Jungian analyst in 1941. The totemic forms of Guardians pay homage to Native American art while exploring his own warring psyche. Pollock saw art making as an attempt to heal himself, a shamanistic, religious ritual that gives over to chance, in the same way that Native American sand painting was seen as a healing practice.