Jackson Pollock had his first solo exhibition at Art of This Century in 1943.
The exhibition was organized by Peggy Guggenheim, whose New York gallery had already shown Pollock in a group exhibition earlier that year. Guggenheim subsequently offered him a one-person show and signed him to a contract that included a monthly stipend of $150.
Pollock’s first one-man show ran from November 9 to 27, 1943. It presented an artist still developing the dense, symbolic style that preceded his famous drip paintings. Important works included “Male and Female,” “Guardians of the Secret,” and “The She-Wolf”; “Pasiphaë” was completed too late for inclusion.
The show did not sell well, but critics recognized its importance. Robert Coates called Pollock’s work an “authentic discovery,” while Clement Greenberg praised several paintings as among the strongest abstract works he had seen by an American. Pollock’s international reputation grew later, especially after his radical poured-paint technique emerged in the late 1940s.