In August of 1949, Life Magazine ran a banner headline that begged the question: "Jackson Pollock: Is he the greatest living painter in the United States?" Already well-known in the New York art world, he had become a household name--America's first "Art Star"--and his bold and radical style of pai

In August of 1949, Life Magazine ran a banner headline that begged the question: "Jackson Pollock: Is he the greatest living painter in the United States?" Already well-known in the New York art world, he had become a household name--America's first "Art Star"--and his bold and radical style of painting continued to change the course of modern art. But the torments that had plagued the artist all of his life--perhaps the ones that drove him to paint in the first place, or that helped script his fiercely original art--continued to haunt him. As he struggled with self-doubt, engaging in a lonely tug-of-war between needing to express himself and wanting to shut the world out, Pollock began a downward spiral that would threaten to destroy the foundations of his marriage, the promise of his career, and his life--all on one deceptively calm and balmy summer night in 1956.