The Genius of Jackson Pollock

Summer Equinox. by Jackson Pollock. c. 1949.

Jackson Pollock grew up in a family of blue collar workers who spent their lives putting together automobiles at the Ford Rouge River Plant just outside of Detroit. 
Pollock went to work in the Rouge River Plant, just like his father and his grandfather, when he was 16, and never finished high school. His first job on the assembly-line was separating lug nuts from wing nuts. He did this until his mid-thirties, when an industrial accident left him without a spleen. During his long months of recuperation and rehabilitation he was encouraged to take up a hobby, so he tried painting. One day he accidentally sneezed all over the canvas of a kitten he was working on and liked the effect. Soon he was sneezing all over his work, and a wealthy art dealer from Coon Rapids, Minnesota, discovered his paintings at Schwab's Pharmacy.
As soon as Pollock could walk again he was drafted into the Army and sent to Korea, where he began painting tanks and anti-aircraft guns with bizarre spatter patterns that quickly got him a medical discharge. From there he moved to New York to take courses at the Art Student's League. That's when he was discovered again by a pawnbroker who liked his work so much he let Pollock paint everything in his shop a bilious green. This led to Pollock's first solo exhibition at Duffy's Tavern, where his paintings commanded such extraordinary prices that he could afford to buy Irish unsalted butter; an extravagance that his father could never afford.
In 1955 he boarded a tramp steamer for Sumatra and has not been heard of since.
His work can be divided into two distinct categories; messy and sloppy. During his messy period he often lay on his canvases and rolled around like a maniac. But this did not satisfy his inner vision and so in the summer of 1953 he began a series of lithographs that relied on water balloons and bedbugs. His most famous work from his sloppy period is "For Rent --Inquire Within," which won the Nobel Peace Price the next year. 
Today his paintings sell for such ridiculous prices that nobody will ever admit to buying one for themselves. It's always for a nephew in Sheboygan.