The She-Wolf

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The She-Wolf

1943

by Jackson Pollock

Oil, gouache, and plaster on canvas, 41 7/8 x 67\" (106.4 x 170.2 cm) Drawn in heavy black and white lines, the wolf advances leftward. Her body is overlaid with abstract lines and patches, a thick, unreadable calligraphy that spreads throughout the canvas. These hieroglyphic intimations, along with the somber palette and the conjuring of myth, reflect the climate of a period shadowed by war. Intended to approach ultimate human mysteries, they were to be simultaneously meaningful and unknowable.