Pollock's 1934 painting of a frontier journey connects his teacher's
energetic style to his own roots in the American West: the scene
may have come from a family photo of a bridge in Cody, Wyoming,
where Pollock was born. The abstract swirling patterns evident in this landscape help
illustrate why Benton boasted that with him Pollock had found "the essential rhythms" of
art.
Jackson Pollock, Going West, c.1934-1935, oil on fiberboard. National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Gift of Thomas Hart Benton
