New needs need new techniques. And the modern artists have found new ways and new means of making their statements... the modern painter cannot express this age, the airplane, the atom bomb, the radio, in the old forms of the Renaissance or of any other past culture.

In September 2009 the art historian Henry Adams claimed in Smithsonian Magazine that Pollock had written his name in his famous painting Mural (1943) The painting is now insured for $140 million. The movie was the project of Ed Harris who portrayed Pollock and directed it. Physicists have argued over whether fractals can be used to authenticate the paintings.

Pollock died at the age of 44 in an alcohol-related single-car accident; he was driving. In 2000 Pollock was the subject of the film Pollock directed by and starring Ed Harris which won an Academy Award. A larger more comprehensive exhibition of his work was held there in 1967.