Free Jackson Pollock by Deborah Solomon Page B

familiar with.)
    Pollock’s grandiose ambitions were in glaring contrast to his accomplishments. The
     most he could hope for at the time was that Benton might make him class monitor, a
     position he had applied for but felt “doubtful about getting.”
    In October 1932, after spending another summer in California, Pollock began his third
     year at the League. He was now living at 46 Carmine Street (“a happy Italian street”)
     and, much to his satisfaction, could claim the distinction of being class monitor.
     His main responsibilities were hiring the models for class and assisting Benton with
     teaching demonstrations, in exchange for which he was exempted from having to pay
     tuition. He was highly conscientious in his duties, especially when compared to his
     teacher. One night when Benton failed to show up for class, someone started shouting,
     “What the hell are we paying for?” As others joined in the protest, Pollock left the
     classroom and returned an hour or so later with Benton in tow. On another occasion,
     Peter Busa complained to Pollock that Benton had yet to offer any criticism of his
     work. “You wait,” Pollock reassured him. “When he comes through that door, he’ll be
     right over to you.”
    That December, Benton was thrust into the limelight again with the unveiling of his
     series of murals for the Whitney Museum of American Art. Pollock had helped him install
     them—theywere hung in the museum’s reading room—and lending to the excitement was the fact
     that the museum had opened only one month earlier, at 10 West Eighth Street. The Whitney
     murals, which continued the themes set forth in the New School murals, were no less
     controversial.
The New York Times
called the project a “conspicuous success,” while Paul Rosenfeld of the
New Republic
found it so offensive he dubbed the room “the ex-reading room.” A few days after
     the Whitney murals went on view, Benton was offered his largest commission yet: the
     chance to paint the history of Indiana for the Indiana Pavilion at the 1933 Chicago
     World’s Fair. Ignoring his teaching duties at the League, he promptly set off for
     Indianapolis, not to return to New York until the following fall.
    When Benton left, his class was taken over by John Sloan, a tall, dapper, sixtyish
     painter who was one of the founders of the so-called Ashcan school. His own work was
     highly realistic, a tendency he encouraged in the work of his students as well. For
     Pollock, who was long past the point of submitting to the rigors of realistic drawing,
     Sloan held little appeal. “We have a substitute,” he reported to his father, “who
     I think little of, and I probably won’t stay with him for long.” He dropped out of
     the class in less than a month—and never studied painting in school again.
    With Benton off in Indiana, Pollock decided to devote himself to sculpture. He was
     primarily interested in stone and mentioned to his parents that he was thinking of
     working in a quarry or a tombstone factory to learn “something about stone and the
     cutting of it.” Although these plans never materialized—“I’m about as helpless as
     a kitten when it comes to getting my way with jobs and things”—Pollock did sign up
     for a couple of courses in sculpture. For two months he studied under Robert Laurent,
     who was born in Brittany and well known in the thirties for his voluptuous nudes.
     His class at the League met at night. Pollock also signed up for a morning class at
     Greenwich House, a settlement house near Sheridan Square that offered free classes
     in art and music.
    Pollock’s teacher at Greenwich House was Ahron Ben-Shmuel, a gruff, belligerent man
     whose massive carvings in graniteand marble had names like
The Warrior
and
The Pugilist
. Pollock took an immediate liking to him and often stopped by his studio on Jane
     Street to watch him work. Ben-Shmuel’s specialty was stone carving. Rather than have
     his students