American artist Jackson Pollock was BOTD in 1912. Born in Cody, Wyoming, he had a turbulent childhood, marked by his father’s alcoholism. After his parents’ separation, he moved with his mother to California, and was frequently expelled from school. In 1930 he moved to New York to study art. After attending a workshop with Mexican muralist David Alfaro Siqueiros, Pollock began experimenting with liquid paint, pouring and dripping paint directly onto canvases laid out on the floor. Critics praised the visceral force and innovation of his work, and he became a central figure in the Abstract Expressionist movement, profiled in Life magazine as America’s greatest living painter and securing the patronage of Peggy Guggenheim. He met fellow artist Lee Krasner in 1942, who help develop and refine his “drip” technique and secured him important commissions. Married in 1945, their relationship was complicated by Pollock’s rampant alcoholism, mental illness and frequent infidelities. Pollock died in a car accident in 1956, aged 44. Krasner was instrumental in promoting his work and constructing his posthumous legacy. Traditionally viewed as the aggressively heterosexual cowboy of the art world, Pollock’s sexuality has been extensively debated. Biographers Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith argue that Pollock was a closeted homosexual and that his macho persona and ejaculatory painting technique were covers for his fears over his sexuality. Queer painter Francis Bacon called Pollock “an old lacemaker”, a jibe that may also have been an attempt to out him. The 2000 biopic Pollock, starring and directed by Ed Harris, won an Oscar for Marcia Gay Harden’s performance as Krasner.