Jackson Pollock died in a car crash — 1956

On August 11, 1956, Jackson Pollock was killed in a single-car accident near his home in Springs, New York. He was 44 years old.

Pollock had redefined what painting could be. His technique of dripping and pouring household paint onto canvases laid flat on the floor turned the act of painting into a full-body performance, earning the label "action painting." Works like Number 1A, 1948 and Autumn Rhythm made him the most famous living American artist by the early 1950s and the face of Abstract Expressionism worldwide. Yet his final years were marked by a long struggle with alcoholism that stalled his output and strained his marriage to fellow painter Lee Krasner. At the time of the crash, Krasner was traveling in Europe. Four months later, the Museum of Modern Art mounted a memorial retrospective in his honor.

Pollock proved that process itself could carry meaning, a lesson that continues to shape how artists think about gesture, material, and risk.