untitled (grapes for Jackson Pollock)

Jimmy Tsutomu Mirikitani, artist

1920–2012

untitled (grapes for Jackson Pollock), circa 2006

Material/technique: drawing; collage; ballpoint pen; crayon; colored pencil; photography; offset print; paper

Dimensions:
Mat Dimensions (Height x Width): 76.2 x 35.56 cm
Frame Dimensions (Height x Width x Depth): 76.84 x 36.2 x 2.54 cm

Credit line: Wing Luke Museum, Collection of Linda Hattendorf, Taos, New Mexico

Accession number: EL2025.031

On display: Long Ellis Gallery

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Street Nihonga: The Art of Jimmy Tsutomu Mirikitani

In untitled (grapes for Jackson Pollock), Mirikitani reflects on his meeting with the iconic Abstract Expressionist. Pollock, whose spontaneous “drip” technique transformed postwar American art, embodied an image of modernist freedom and fame that contrasted sharply with Mirikitani’s marginal existence on New York’s streets. Yet Mirikitani reclaims Pollock’s legacy through his own language of line: curling vines that spill across the paper echo Pollock’s strands of paint, translating gestural abstraction into organic growth. These tendrils entwine with clusters of grapes—symbols of hospitality, nourishment, and creative communion—suggesting that Mirikitani’s act of drawing is also an offering. By sharing these hospitable symbols with Pollock, Mirikitani claims a place in the history of modern art.