Blue Poles

Jackson Pollock, Gough Whitlam and the Painting That Changed a Nation

Author: Thomas McIlroy

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25th February 2025

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Description

An iconic American painting. An Australian controversy. Where art and politics, myth-making and modernism intersect, there is Blue Poles by Jackson Pollock. Now in the eye-opening Blue Poles book, journalist Tom McIlroy uncovers the fascinating story of the painter, the politics, and the national scandal that followed.

In 1973, the Australian government bought Jackson Pollock's Blue Poles for A$1.4 million for the National Gallery of Australia.

Blue Poles: Jackson Pollock, Gough Whitlam and the painting that changed the nation tells the story of how Jackson Pollock rose to fame, how the record-setting purchase of Blue Poles sparked a media sensation and controversy both in Australia and the United States, and all the successes and turbulent turns in between.

Blue Poles provides insights into Pollock's movements within art circles, which included Peggy Guggenheim and his contemporaries Rothko and de Kooning, as well as the relationship with his artist wife Lee Krasner, who was his biggest champion while also bearing the brunt of Pollock's personal troubles. And while Pollock was known for inspiring hope for a new art tradition outside of Europe, larger than life accounts surrounded his artistic practice, including questions around the creation of Blue Poles, which some believe to be true and others pure myth-making.

It was Gough Whitlam's commitment to the arts and cultural capital that would see the work originally called Number 11 (1952) move to another continent where brows were raised - concerns centred around the worth of a work by 'Jack the Dripper' and the value of local artistic output among others.

Blue Poles: Jackson Pollock, Gough Whitlam and the painting that changed the nation is the compelling account of one of Australia's most prized paintings and the controversies that followed it, from its NYC origins to the hallowed halls of the National Gallery of Australia.

About the Author

Tom McIlroy is the Australian Financial Review's political correspondent, reporting from the press gallery at Parliament House. Born and raised in Melbourne, he has reported for a range of newspapers in Australia and overseas, including The Age, Sydney Morning Herald, Ballarat Courier, Canberra Times and Houston Chronicle.

A graduate of Melbourne University and RMIT University, McIlroy has been featured in a range of publications including Meanjin and Art Monthly Australasia. Based in Canberra, he writes on national politics, the arts, tax and the economy. Blue Poles is his first book.