The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of December 18, 2025

Vertically oriented oil painting completely overlayed with thick paint swirls of black, grey, white, and yellow that occassionaly thin into fine streaks and splatter into flecks and blobs. Occasionally a field of cream, blue, or green shows through from under the swirling mass.

Number 5, 1950

1950

Jackson Pollock

(American, 1912–1956)
America
oil on canvas
Framed: 138 x 102 x 5 cm (54 5/16 x 40 3/16 x 1 15/16 in.); Unframed: 136.5 x 99.1 cm (53 3/4 x 39 in.)
Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund 1980.180
© Pollock-Krasner Foundation / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Location: 227 Abstract Expressionism

Did You Know?

Although he was born Paul Jackson Pollock, he always went by his middle name.

Description

Notoriously nicknamed "Jack the Dripper" by Time magazine, Pollock pioneered the technique of flinging pigment from store-bought cans of paint onto canvas placed flat on the floor. Filled with intricate webs of lines and intermingled spatters, paintings such as Number 5, 1950 are unusually direct records of the artist's moving body and hand gestures.
  • 1950
    (Betty Parsons Gallery, New York, NY, sold to Mr. and Mrs. Walter Bareiss)
    1950–1957
    Walter [1919–2007] and Molly Bareiss [1920–2006], Greenwich, CT, given to the Museum of Modern Art, New York
    1957–1980
    Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art
    1980–
    The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
  • Betty Parsons Gallery, Sales and Purchases: Sales Invoices, Barc-Bart, 1950-1973, Box 25, Folder 29, frame 3, Archives of American Art, New York, NY
    Hamilton, George Heard. Object and Image in Modern Art and Poetry: An Essay and an Exhibition at the Yale University Art Gallery, 30 April, 1954, through 14 June, 1954. New Haven, CT: Yale University Art Gallery, 1954. cat. no. 27
    Hunter, Sam, Museum of Modern Art (New York, N.Y.), International Council of the Museum of Modern Art (New York, N.Y.), and Bienal Internacional de São Paulo 1957). Pollock. New York: The Council, 1957. cat. no. 19
    The New American Painting, as Shown in Eight European Countries, 1958-1959. New York: Museum of Modern Art; distributed by Doubleday, Garden City, NY, 1959. cat. no. 18
    "Painting and Sculpture Acquisitions January 1, 1957 through December 31, 1957," The Bulletin of the Museum of Modern Art 25.4 (July 1958): 3–24.
    Musée national d’art moderne (France), and Jackson Pollock. Jackson Pollock et La Nouvelle Peinture Américaine. Paris: Editions des Musées Nationaux, 1959. cat. no. 16
    Goossen, E. C.. The Art of the Real; an Aspect of American Painting and Sculpture 1948-1968. Great Britain. Arts Council. Catalogues. 1969. Volume 1. London: Arts Council, 1968. Mentioned: p. 54, cat. no. 37; Reproduced: p. 16
    O’Connor, Francis V. and Eugene Victor Thaw, eds. A Catalogue Raisonné of Paintings, Drawings, and Other Works. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1978. Mentioned and reproduced: p. 89, vol. 2, no. 266
    Henning, Edward B. The Spirit of Surrealism. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1979. cat. no. 94
    Cleveland Museum of Art, “The Cleveland Museum of Art Has Purchased a Major Work by Jackson Pollock,” January 6, 1981, Cleveland Museum of Art Archives. archive.org
    Lee, Sherman E. “The Year in Review for 1980.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 68, no. 6 (1981): 163–219. Mentioned: no. 106, pp. 163, 199, 214; Reproduced: no. 106, p. 198 www.jstor.org
    Henning, Edward B. Creativity in Art and Science, 1860-1960. [Cleveland, Ohio]: Published by the Cleveland Museum of Art in cooperation with Indiana University Press, 1987. Reproduced: P. 81, pl. VIII; Mentioned and reproduced: P. 132, no. 42
    Donley, Gregory M., "Geometric Means", Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland Art: The Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine. Vol. 46 no. 05, May/June 2006 Mentioned & reproduced: p. 7 archive.org
    Sims, Lowery Stokes. The Persistence of Geometry : Form, Content, and Culture in the Collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 2006. Mentioned: no. 91, p. 121; Reproduced: p. 100
    Adams, Henry. What's American about American art?: a gallery tour in the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2008. Reproduced: p. 146 - 147
    Arendsee, M., and M. Steinman-Arendsee. "Take the CAN disability aesthetics tour, at the Cleveland Museum of art." CAN Journal (Winter 2019/20): 76-87. Mentioned: p.86
  • Landscapes by Arnold Chang: A Retrospective and Recent Acquisitions 張洪山水畫回顧展. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (March 8-November 9, 2025).
    The Persistence of Geometry: Form, Content and Culture in the Collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland (MOCA), Cleveland, OH (June 9-August 20, 2006).
    CMA Highlights. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (June 21-September 11, 2005).
    Creativity in Art and Science, 1860-1960. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (September 16-November 8, 1987).
    Year in Review: 1980. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (June 24-July 19, 1981).
    The Spirit of Surrealism. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (October 3-November 25, 1979).
    The Art of the Real: An Aspect of American Painting and Sculpture 1948-1968. Tate Gallery, London, England. Organized by the Museum of Modern Art, New York (International Council) (April 24-June 1, 1969).
    Two Decades of Americian Painting, selected by Waldo Rasmussen. Organized by Museum of Modern Art, New York, shown at: National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, Japan, (October 15-November 27, 1966); National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto, Japan (December 10, 1966-January 22, 1967); Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi, India (March 28-April 15, 1967); National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia (June 6-July 9, 1967); Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia (July 17-August 13, 1967).
    Painting and Sculpture and Graphic Art from the Museum Collection. Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY (1962–1963).
    First International Modern Art Exhibition. Museo de Arte Moderno, Buenos Aires, Argentina (1960).
    Jackson Pollock and the New American Painting. Musée National D'Art Moderne, Paris, France (January 16-February 15, 1959); organized by the Museum of Modern Art, New York (International Council).
    Recent Acquisitions. Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY (1959–1960).
    The New American Painting. Basel, Kunsthalle, (April 19-May 26, 1958); traveled to Hamburg, Kunstverein, (July 19-August 17, 1958); organized by the Museum of Modern Art, New York (International Council); possibly traveled to Galleria civica d'arte moderna, Milan, Italy (June 1-29, 1958); Hochscule fur Bildende Kunst, Berlin, Germany (September 1-October 1, 1958); Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, The Netherlands (October 17-November 24, 1958); Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels, Belgium (December 6, 1958-January 4, 1959); Tate Gallery, London, England (February 24- March 23, 1959); Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY (May 28-September 8, 1959).
    Pollock. Museo de Arte Moderna, Sao Paulo, Brazil (1957).
    Object and Image in Modern Art and Poetry. Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT (April 30-June 14, 1954).
    Jackson Pollock 1948-1951. Studio Paul Facchetti, Paris, France (March 7-31, 1952).
    Jackson Pollock. Betty Parsons Gallery, New York, NY (November 28-December 16, 1950).
  • {{cite web|title=Number 5, 1950|url=false|author=Jackson Pollock|year=1950|access-date=18 December 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1980.180