7. Jackson Pollock – Jack The Dripper , 1956
In an edition of Time Magazine from 1956, Pollock was mockingly labelled “Jack The Dripper” for his unique style of painting. The moniker referred to the artist’s famous technique in which Pollock splattered, sprayed and poured paint on a canvas on the floor, using sticks, brushes and syringes, rather than the more traditional method of spreading paint with a brush on an easel-propped canvas. Pollock would walk around the canvas, and often over it, attacking the picture from every direction and working from within the painting. His style of art was called “action painting” and was derided in the publication, yet Pollock became one of the leaders of the Abstract Expressionist movement, the artist’s work was met at first with as much derision as praise. In 2006, producer David Geffen sold a Pollock painting, No. 5, 1948, for $140 million, making it the world’s most expensive painting at that time.