Francis V. O'Connor

FRANCIS VALENTINE O’CONNOR, Ph.D
Mailing Address:
Dr. Francis V. O’Connor
250 East 73rd St., Apt. 11C, New York, N.Y. 10021-4310
Tel/​Fax: (212) 988-8927 - E-mail: FVOC@​aol.com

OVERALL CAREER NARRATIVE

FRANCIS V. O’CONNOR was born on February 14, 1937 in Brooklyn, N. Y., and received his early education there. He took his B.A. in English from MANHATTAN COLLEGE (1959) and his M.A. in creative writing from THE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY (1960). Turning to the History of Art, he received his Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins (1965) with a dissertation on the early career of the American painter Jackson Pollock.

In 1967 he wrote the catalogue for THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART's Pollock retrospective.[See the bibliographies below for full citations]. He taught the history of contemporary European and American art at the UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND (1964-70) and organized there (1966) the first comprehensive exhibition of the art of the New Deal patronage programs since they ended in 1943. He directed a research project for the NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE ARTS designed to evaluate the cultural and economic effectiveness of New Deal patronage (1967-68). Three publications resulted from this project: its final report: FEDERAL SUPPORT FOR THE VISUAL ARTS: THE NEW DEAL AND NOW (1969), and two anthologies: THE NEW DEAL ART PROJECTS: AN ANTHOLOGY OF MEMOIRS (1972) and ART FOR THE MILLIONS (1973). He was the first Senior Visiting Research Associate in the Research Program of the Smithsonian's NATIONAL COLLECTION OF FINE ARTS ( 1970-72; now Smithsonian American Art Museum). During this period he gave courses at The Johns Hopkins University, American Univsity, the Corcoran School of Art, and the Smithsonian Institution.

He moved back to New York in the fall of 1972, and directed the research for, and compiled, JACKSON POLLOCK: A CATALOGUE RAISONNÉ OF PAINTINGS, DRAWINGS, AND OTHER WORKS (1978) which he co-edited with Eugene V. Thaw. He served as Adjunct Professor to individual Ph.D. candidates in the UNION GRADUATE SCHOOL, and as a Tutor in the WHITNEY MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART's Independent Study Program. Between 1974 and 1983 he published FEDERAL ART PATRONAGE NOTES, a newsletter on government cultural policy.

In the early 1980s he began research for a history of the American mural. In 1987 he received a grant from the UNITED STATES CAPITOL HISTORICAL SOCIETY, to study the murals in our nation’s capitol, and in 1987-88 he received an Independent Scholars Fellowship from the NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES to travel the country in search of murals. In the spring of 1990 he was the Robert Sterling Clark Visiting Professor of Art History at WILLIAMS COLLEGE, where he offered a course on the American mural, and a graduate seminar on the psycho-dynamics of the Abstract Expressionists. In the spring of 1991 he was a Rockefeller Resident Fellow at the INSTITUTE FOR THE MEDICAL HUMANITIES at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, where he undertook research for a book on the psychodynamics of image making in the visual arts. In the fall of 1993, he
was Visiting Professor of Art History at GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY in D.C., where he taught a graduate seminar on the American mural. He spent the academic year 1994-95 as a Fellow at the NATIONAL HUMANITIES CENTER in North Carolina, where he worked on his history of American murals. While there he also saw a SUPPLEMENT to the 1978 Jackson Pollock catalogue raisonné through the press; it was published by the POLLOCK-KRASNER FOUNDATION in fall of 1995. In 2003 he published CHARLES SELIGER: REDEFINING ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONISM.

He is a member of the COLLEGE ART ASSOCIATION and the INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF ART CRITICS; is a Fellow of THE SOCIETY FOR THE ARTS, RELIGION AND CONTEMPORARY CULTURE (ARC), and an honorary member of the NATIONAL SOCIETY OF MURAL PAINTERS. In 1982 he founded the ASSOCIATION OF INDEPENDENT HISTORIANS OF ART (AIHA).

He has lectured extensively on American art and the psychodynamics of creativity, has written numerous essays for exhibition catalogues and anthologies, and articles for THE AMERICAN ART JOURNAL, ART CRITICISM, ARTFORUM, THE ART JOURNAL, ARTS, CULTURAL AFFAIRS, the ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA, PSYCHOANALYTIC PERSPECTIVES ON ART, THE NEW YORK TIMES, and the DICTIONARY OF ART.

He is listed in CONTEMPORARY AUTHORS, WHO’S WHO IN AMERICAN ART, WHO’S WHO IN THE EAST, THE DICTIONARY OF INERNATIONAL BIOGRAPHY, and THE DIRECTORY OF AMERICAN POETS.

From 1998 to 2007 Dr. O’Connor launched O’CONNOR’S PAGE--a Website devoted to exhibition reviews and commentary about art world events. Go To Index of this site from home page here

CAREER NARRATIVES & SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHIES BY TOPIC — 1966 to 2010

Note: The following Bibliographies are organized by Topic, beginning with the one currently being addressed, and are introduced by a Career Narrative specific to it. The works in progress or press, books, articles, reviews, and unpublished lectures (the latter since 1990), are arranged under each heading by date, beginning with the most recent.

INDEX — Note, you can use a keyword search for the materials below.

Part 1: Mural in America
Part 2: Psychodynamics of Creativity
Part 3: New Deal Projects & Government Art Patronage
Part 4: Jackson Pollock and Abstract Expressionism
Part 5: Authentication of Works of Art
Part 6: Entries for Reference Books

Part 1: The Mural in America

Dr. O'Connor’s publications on the New Deal art projects of the 1930s, his work on the large-scale painting of Jackson Pollock and the Abstract Expressionists, and his interest in public art policy as Editor of Federal Art Patronage Notes, has led to his current major project: an illustrated book and CD-ROM on: The Mural in America: The History of Wall Painting as Art and Environment from Native American Times to the Present. In the decade since he began this research, he has visited mural sites in 35 states, from historic houses in New England to our newest State Capitol in Honolulu via the rock art canyons of Utah. In the spring of 1987 he was in residence for over two months at the U.S. Capitol studying our earliest frescoes with a fellowship from the U.S.Capitol Historical Society. There he studied Constantino Brumidi's walls in situ with the guidance of their restorers. In 1987-88 he received an Independent Scholar's Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities to support further travel and mural research. During the spring term of 1990 he was the Robert Sterling Clark Visiting Professor of Art History at Williams College, where he gave a course on the history of American murals. In 1993 he was inducted as an honorary member of The National Society of Mural Painters. In the fall of 1993, he was Visiting Professor at George Washington University in D.C., where he gave a graduate seminar in the American mural. In 1994-95, Dr. O’Connor was a Fellow at the National Humanities Center, where he worked on the manuscript of his book.

This book will be published on the Internet early in 2009

Among his mural publications and lectures are:

"Jackson Pollock's Mural for Peggy Guggenheim: Its Legend, Documentation, and Redefinition of Wall Painting," in Philip Rylands and Susan Davidson, Editors, Peggy Guggenheim and Frederick Kiesler: The Story of Art of This Century, Venice: The Peggy Guggenheim Collection, 2004, pp. 150-169.

“Constantino Brumidi as Decorator & History Painter: An Iconographic Analysis of Two Rooms in the U. S. Capitol,” American Pantheon: Sculptural and Artistic Decoration of the United States Capitol, edited by Donald R. Kennon and Thomas P. Somma, Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2004 , pp. 204-219.

“The United States Capitol Rotunda and the Decoration of the State Capitols: 1870-1930,” American Pantheon: Sculptural and Artistic Decoration of the United States Capitol, edited by Donald R. Kennon and Thomas P. Somma, Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2004 , pp. 254-278.

“The Murals of Walter Anderson: An Encompassing Vision,” in Patricia Pinson, Editor, The Art of Walter Anderson, exh. cat., Ocean Springs, Mississippi: The Universty Press of Mississippi and The Walter Anderson Museum of Art, 2003, pp. 47-63.

“Early Modernist Murals in America; 1910 to 1920,” Paper for 2002 College Art Association Session “The American Mural Painting Tradition: History, Function, Meaning,” February 2002.

“The Mural: An Art Form for the People” and “Progressive Era Murals: 1904 to 1933.” Introductory essay and chapter 5 respectively, in Heather Becker, Art for the People: The Discovery and Preservation of Progressive- and WPA-Era Murals in the Chicago Public Schools, 1904-1943, San Francisco, California: Chronicle Books, 2002.

“The Mural in America: Wall Painting in the United States from Native American Times to Postmodernism” -- A Series of Seven Illustrated Lectures at The National Academy of Design, New York, Spring/​Fall 2001. The first lecture, “The Mural as an Art Form”, and the last “Prophecies Concerning the Mural in America,” have been published on O’CONNOR'S PAGE at Commentaries 10 and 17. Go to index on home page here.

“Notes on the Preservation of American Murals,” in Mortality Immortality? The Legacy of 20th Century Art, Edited by Miguel Angel Corzo, Los Angeles, CA: The Getty Conservation Institute, 1999, pp.153-158.

"Symbolism in the [U. S. Capitol] Rotunda,” in Barbara A. Wolanin, Constantino Brumidi: Artist of the Capitol, Prepared under the Direction of The Architect of the Capitol, Washington, DC: U. S. Government Printing Office, 1998, pp. 141-55.

“An Historic Day’s Mural Hunting in Utah: From Native America to the WPA,” in Whelks Walk Review, Southhampton, New York, Vol. 1, No. 1, February 1998, pp. 73-79. Reprinted in The Independent Scholar, Berkeley, CA, Vol. XVI, No. 2, Spring 2002, pp. 7-10.

"The Hoop of History: Native American Murals and the Historical Present," in History Painting in America: A Reassessment. Edited by Patricia Burnham and Lucretia H. Giese. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995, pp. 17-36.

“Jackson Pollock: A Note About [His] Murals,” in Supplement Number One - Jackson Pollock: A Catalogue Raisonné of Paintings, Drawings, and Other Works. Editor. New York: The Pollock-Krasner Foundation, Inc., 1995, pp. 52-3.

“A Mini-Museum of the American Mural.” Ideas from The National Humanities Center. Vol. 3, No. 2 (Summer 1995), pp. 36-44. [A picture essay illustrated with eight major American wall paintings dating from ca. 950 AD to 1967.]

Articles on Thomas Hart Benton, Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco and David Alfaro Siqueiros, for Macmillan's recently published Dictionary of Art.

“A History of True Fresco in the United States: 1825 to 1945,” in Fresco: A Contem- porary Perspective. Exh.Cat. Staten Island, NY: Snug Harbor Cultural Center, [1995], pp. 3-10. This essay was first published in a phamphlet of the same title at the opening of the exhibition in October 1993.

“Nautical and Aquatic Themes in American Murals from Native American Times to the Present.” Unpublished paper for panel “Neptune Revealed: Perspectives on a Ceiling Mural Restoration,” Snug Harbor Cultural Center, SI, NY, Nov. 21, 1993.

“Freemasonry and the American Mural.” Unpublished paper read at the George Washington U, Washington, DC, December 1, 1993. Repeated at the Art Department, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, January 13, 1995.

"The Murals by Constantino Brumidi for the United States Capitol Rotunda, 1860-1880: An Iconographic Interpretation," in The Italian Presence in American Art: 1860 to 1920. Irma B. Jaffe, Editor. Rome & NY: Instituto della Enciclopedia Italiana /​ The Fordham University Press, 1992, pp. 81-96.

"The Influence of Diego Rivera on the Art of the United States During the 1930s and After" and "An Iconographic Interpretation of Diego Rivera's Detroit Industry Murals in Terms of their Orientation to the Cardinal Points of the Compass." In Diego Rivera: A Retrospective, Detroit Institute of Arts /​ W. W. Norton, 1986, pp. 157-183 and 215-229 respectively.

Part 2: The Psychodynamics of Creativity

Dr. O'Connor’s interest in psychology and creativity is rooted in his early raining in English literature and creative writing, his own writing of poetry, and his personal experience of the analytic process.
He has lectured on the psychodynamics of creativity at New York University's annual Psychoanalytic Perspectives on Art conference, the Jung Foundations of New York, San Francisco, and Houston, and participated in sessions on the subject at the National Gallery of Art's Center for Advanced Studies in the Visual Arts (CASVA), the American Psychoanalytic Association, the American Academy of Psycho- analysis, and the Houston/​Galveston Psychoanalytic Society.
Dr. O'Connor is currently working on a book titled Creating Artists: A Psycho-dynamic Study of Image Making in the Visual Arts. This book proposes to answer five fundamental questions: How do individuals 1) develop into artists? 2) select - and change - media? 3) achieve their typical form and style? 4) develop over the life course? 5) resolve their imagery in old age?
He was the Robert Sterling Clark Visiting Professor of Art History at Williams College during the spring term of 1990, where he gave a seminar on the Psycho-dynamics of the Abstract Expressionists. In 1991 he held a Rockefeller Fellowship in the Humanities at the Institute for the Medical Humanities of the University of Texas Medical School at Galveston, where he completed the psychiatric research for Creating Artists.

Among his publications and lectures on the Psychodynamics of Creativity are:

Creating Artists: A Psycho-dynamic Study of Visual Image Making. (Book in Progress)

“Metaphoric Duality, Psychological Parity, and the Crisis of Interiority in 20th Century Art and Literature,” in Art Criticism, 20:2 (2005), pp. 7-20.

”Allegories of Pathos and Perspective in the Symbolical Paintings and Self-Portraits of Edwin Dickinson: An Interpretive Essay,” in Edwin Dickinson: A Retrospective Exhibition, exh.cat., Albright Knox Art Gallery /​ Hudson Hills Press, 2002, pp. 51-75. See also the commentaries on this essay in Robert Berlind, “Edwin Dickinson: Waking Visions,” Art in America, No. 2 (February 2003), pp. 88-85; David Anfam, exhibition review, Burlington Magazine, Vol. CXLV, (March 2003), pp. 247-49; and Ken Johnson, “Painter’s Grief Unfolds in Gloomy Allegories,” The New York Times (March 21,2003), p. E41.

“Jackson Pollock: Down to the Weave: A Commentary on a Selection of Key Works,” in Helen Harrison, Editor, Such Desperate Joy: Imagining Jackson Pollock, New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press, 2000, pp. 177-194. [11th Annual Pollock-Krasner Lecture, Guild Hall, East Hampton, NY, August 16, 1998.]

“Alfonso Ossorio’s Expressionist Paintings on Paper,” in Alfonso Ossorio: The Child Returns,1950, Philippines, New York: Michael Rosenfeld Gallery, 1998, pp. 5-16.

“Clinton: Surviving a Death in Life,” Clio’s Psyche, 5:3, December 1998, pp. 87-88. [A psychodynamic commentary on Bill Clinton’s repentance after the Lewinsky scandal and impeachment.]

“Maurice Sievan (1898-1981): An Artist of the New York School,” in Creative Lives: New York Paintings and Photographs by Maurice and Lee Sievan, New York: Museum of the City of New York, 1997, pp. 33-81.

“Wallace Stevens and the Creative Process: The Paradox of Jars and Guitars as They Are.” Unpublished paper for seminar on “Perspectives on The Man With the Blue Guitar: Art, Music, and Literature,” Curtis Institute of Music, Philadelphia, PA, May 14, 1993. Repeated at Mishkin Gallery, Baruch College, CUNY, March 30, 1995, at opening of an exhibition of visual art related to Wallace Stevens.

“Creating Artists: The Psycho-dynamics of Image Making in the Visual Arts.” All-day Workshop, The C. G. Jung Foundation, New York, NY, July 22, 1993. (Based on Creating Artists book in progress)

“Unconscious, Preconscious, Conscious: The Question of Artistic Motivation in Jackson Pollock’s The She-Wolf.” Unpublished paper for Interdisciplinary Seminar at meeting of the American Psychoanalytic Association, New York, Dec. 19, 1993.

"Painting Women; Feinting with Eros." Art Criticism, 7:2, Winter 1992, pp. 76-8. [A commentary on Edwin Blashfield, John Singer Sargent, Willem de Kooning and Jean Dubuffet.]

"Jackson Pollock and the Somatic Unconscious: Thoughts on Perinatal Trauma and Essentialist Vision." Unpublished paper for panel on "Jackson Pollock: 'Psychoanalytic' Drawings," Art Museum, Princeton University, April 26, 1992.

"The Styles of Sanity." Medical Humanities Review, 5:2, July 1991, pp. 51-7. [Review of two books on the art of the insane.]

"Eros, Art, and the Delights of Sublimation: Notes on the Asceticism of Aesthetic Concupiscence." Unpublished paper for "The Good Body: Asceticism in Contem-porary Culture," Institute for the Medical Humanities, U. of TX, April 12, 1991.

"Sublimation and Eros." Unpublished paper read at colloquium "Enhancing Medicine through Art and Creativity," at annual meeting of the Society for Health and Human Values, St. Louis, October 13, 1991

"Modernist Abstraction and the Icon of Death." Unpublished paper for session on "Psychoanalysis, Culture, and the Arts since World War II," at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Psychoanalysis, New York, NY, May 11, 1990. Also read at the Institute for the Medical Humanities, Galveston TX, May 1991.

"The Psychodynamics of Modernism: A Postmodernist View. Baudelaire and the Element-alism of Melancholy," Psychoanalytic Perspectives on Art 2, 1987, pp. 69ff.

"Depressive Elementalism and Modernism: A Postmodernist Meditation." Art Criticism, Vol. 2, No. 2, [Spring] 1986, pp. 43-56.

"The Psychodynamics of the Frontal Self-portrait," Psychoanalytic Perspectives on Art 1, 1985, pp. 169-221. [Contains a theory of life course development. See also PPA 2, 1987, for “True Grit: A Note on a Frontal Self-Portrait by Queen Victoria,” pp. 307-311.]

"Albert Berne and the Completion of Being: Images of Vitality and Extinction in the Last Paintings of a Ninety-Six-Year-Old Man," in Aging, Death and the Completion of Being. Edited by David Van Tassel. Philadelphia: The University of Penn- sylvania Press, 1979, pp. 255-89.

Part 3: The New Deal Art Projects & Government Art Patronage

Dr. O'Connor’s interest in the history and policy of government art patronage began with his early work on the activities and accomplishments of the various New Deal visual arts programs of the 1930s. In 1966 he organized the first major exhibition and catalogue of art from the Depression projects, Federal Art Patronage: 1933 to 1943, at the University of Maryland. This led to his receiving a special research grant from the National Endowment for the Arts in 1967-8 to study the cultural and economic effectiveness of the New Deal projects. Three publications resulted from this project: its final report: Federal Support for the Visual Arts: The New Deal and Now, and two anthologies: The New Deal Art Projects; An Anthology of Memoirs and Art for the Millions: Essays from the 1930s by Artists and Administrators of the WPA Federal Art Project.

From 1970 to 1972 he was Senior Visiting Research Associate in the Research Program of the Smithsonian's National Collection of Fine Arts (now National Museum of American Art), where he established a National Register of New Deal Art to document the production of the federal programs of the l930s throughout the country. He has also acted as a consultant to exhibitions of New Deal art in California, New Jersey, Oklahoma and South Carolina.

From 1974 to 1983 he edited and published Federal Art Patronage Notes, a news-letter on government cultural policy, which had a national circulation.

His interest in these matters has evolved into his current major research project, which is an illustrated book and videodisc on our mural tradition and the many dimensions of public, institutional and private patronage that are an important part of its history: The Mural in America: The History of Wall Painting as Art and Environment from Native American Times to the Present.

Among his publications and lectures on the New Deal and Government and Art Patronage are:

“Framing Time in Expressive Spaces: Eudora Welty’s Stories, [WPA] Photographs, and the Art of Mississippi in the 1930s,” in Passionate Observer: Eudora Welty among Artists of the Thirties, Exh.Cat., Jackson: Mississippi Museum of Art, 2002, pp. 56-84.

“The Historiography of New Deal Art Project Studies: How they started, What they achieved, What happened to them, & What remains to be done.” Keynote Address for Conference on “The New Deal: Past, Present and Future,” sponsored by the National New Deal Preservation Association at the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, May 3, 2002.

“Adventures in Saving New Deal Murals.” Lecture at The Art Institute of Chicago, May 5, 2002.

“The Mural: An Art Form for the People” and “Progressive Era Murals: 1904 to 1933.” Introductory essay and chapter 5 respectively, in Heather Becker, Art for the People: The Discovery and Preservation of Progressive- and WPA-Era Murals in the Chicago Public Schools, 1904-1943, San Francisco, California: Chronicle Books, 2002.

“Burgoyne Diller, Geometric Abstraction and the Redress of Art in the 1930s,” in Burgoyne Diller: The 1930s, Cubism and Abstraction, exh. cat. Michael Rosenfeld Gallery, 2001. pp. 3-10. [Diller was director of the WPA Federal Art Project’s Mural Division in New York.]

“New Deal Prints in Historical Context.” Unpublished lecture at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, April 14, 1996.

“The WPA Federal Art Project at Timberline.” In Janet Kardon, Editor, Revivals! Diverse Traditions: 1920-1945. New York: American Craft Museum /​ Harry N. Abrams, 1994, pp. 62-64.

"The 1930s In America: Notes on the Transition from Social to Individual Scale in the Art of the Depression Era." In American Art in the 20th Century: Painting and Sculpture 1913-1993. Exh.Cat. London and Berlin: Royal Academy of Arts /​ Zeitgeist-Gesellschaft, 1993, pp. 61-68.

“The WPA Era: Urban Views and Visions.” Introduction to exhibition catalogue of same title, Michael Rosenfeld Gallery, New York, 1992, pp. 3-4.

"The Psycho-dynamics of Geometric Abstraction in New Deal Murals." Unpublished paper for symposium on the Williamsburg Murals, The Brooklyn Museum, April 27, 1991.

“Introduction.” Christopher DeNoon, Posters of the WPA. Los Angeles: The Wheatley Press /​ Seattle: Univesity of Washington Press, 1987, pp. 7-10. [Well illustrated book that contains recollections by Richard Floethe and Anthony Velonis.]

"Fifty Years of Government Versus Art," The Art Journal, Vol. 44, No. 4, Winter 1984 [actually published Fall 1985], pp. 393-400. [Review of twelve recent books and exhibition catalogues on public art patronage.]

"The Usable Future: The Role of Fantasy in the Promotion of a Consumer Society for Art," in Dawn of a New Day: The New York World's Fair 1939/​1940. New York: The Queens Museum /​ NYU Press, 1980, pp. 57-7l.

"Introduction," WPA/​FAP Graphics. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press for the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service, 1976.

"Introduction," New Deal Art: California. Santa Clara, California: de Saisset Art Gallery and Museum, University of Santa Clara, 1976.

"The Economy of Patronage: Arshile Gorky on the Art Projects," Arts (Special Issue on Arshile Gorky), March 1976, pp. 94-5.

Art for the Millions: Essays from the 1930s by artists and Administrators of the WPA Federal Art Project. Editor. Greenwich, Connecticut: The New York Graphic Society, Ltd., 1973. Paperback, 1975. (Out of print)

The New Deal Art Projects: An Anthology of Memoirs. Editor. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1972. (Out of print.)

"Notes on Patronage: The 1960s," Artforum, September 1972, pp. 52-6

Federal Support for the Visual Arts, The New Deal and Now. A Report on the New Deal Art Projects in New York City and State with Recommendations for Present-day Federal Support for the Visual Arts. Submitted to the National Endowment for the Arts. Greenwich, Connecticut: The New York Graphic Society, Ltd., 1969. Reprinted 1971. (Out of print)

“A Sampler of New Deal Murals.” American Heritage, 22:6 (October 1970), pp. 45-57.

"The New Deal Art Projects in New York," The American Art Journal, Fall 1969.

"Introduction/​Catalogue," Federal Art Patronage: 1933-43. Exh.Cat., College Park: University of Maryland Art Gallery, 1966.

Part 4: Jackson Pollock and Abstract Expressionism

Dr. O'Connor wrote his doctoral disserta tion at The Johns Hopkins University in 1965 on the topic “The Genesis of Jackson Pollock: 1912-1943.” This was the first dissertation accepted by a major American university on a contemporary American artist.

In 1967 he wrote the catalogue for The Museum of Modern Art's Pollock retrospec-tive in the form of a narrative chronology, with excepts from his writings and reviews.

Between 1973 and 1978, Dr. O'Connor co-edited, with the art dealer Eugene Victor Thaw, Jackson Pollock: A Catalogue Raisonné of Paintings, Drawings and Other Works. This was published by the Yale University Press in four volumes, and remains the standard work on the artist.

In 1978, he organized an exhibition of the works by Pollock discovered in the course of editing the catalogue raisonné. Titled Jackson Pollock: New-found Works, it originated at the Yale University Art Gallery, and traveled to the Smithsonian's National Collection of Fine Arts, and the art gallery of the University of Chicago.

Dr. O'Connor was a member of the Pollock-Krasner Authentication Board (and also its predecessors back to 1973), that passed on the authorship of objects attributed to Pollock and his wife, Lee Krasner. The other members were Eugene V. Thaw, President of the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, William S. Lieberman of the Metropolitan Museum, and Professor Ellen Landau of Case Western University. The Board was abolished in 1996.

In the fall of 1995 he published the first Supplement to the 1978 Pollock catalogue raisonné, presenting 48 new Pollocks, and a number of unpublished documents. Sponsored by the Pollock-Krasner Foundation -- and is distributed by Ursus Books, New York. He also organized a second “New-found Works” exhibition that ran at the Jason McCoy Gallery, September-October 1995. His most recent book is Charles Seliger: Redefining AbstractExpressionism.

He is currently completing a book tentatively titled Jackson Pollock: Down to he Weave - An Analysis of the Style and Meaning of Thirty-Five Key Works." Excerpts from this book have been published as “Jackson Pollock's Number 1, 1949," in The Rita and Taft Schreiber Collection, Los Angeles: The Museum of Contemporary Art, 1991, and "Jackson Pollock's Number 2, 1949," in Paul D. Schweizer, et.al. Master- works of American Art in the Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute, NY: Abrams, 1989.
In 1998, on the occasion of The Museum of Modern Art’s Pollock exhibition, he established a “Pollock Watch” on his website, O’CONNOR’S PAGE, that contains reviews of the show; the commentaries contain some of the material in his book Jackson Pollock: Down to the Weave. Go to: < http://members.aol.com/FVOC >

Among his publications and lectures on Pollock and Abstract Expressionism are:
”Jackson Pollock’s Monumentality: The Small Poured Paintings, 1943-1950,” in Exh. Cat. Jackson Pollock: The Small, Poured Paintings, 1943-1950, East Hampton, New York: The Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center, 2006, pp. 1-24.

"Jackson Pollock's Mural for Peggy Guggenheim: Its Legend, Documentation, and Redefinition of Wall Painting," in Philip Rylands and Susan Davidson, Editors, Peggy Guggenheim and Frederick Kiesler: The Story of Art of This Century, Venice: The Peggy Guggenheim Collection, 2004, pp. 150-169.

Charles Seliger: Redefining Abstract Expressionism, New York: Hudson Hills Press, 2003 -- See especially the Afterword, pp. 81-88.

“The Scholarly Potential of Jackson Pollock’s Paintig Floor,” IFAR Journal, 4:4/​5:1, 2001/​02, pp. 41-47.

Jackson Pollock: Down to the Weave - An Analysis of the Style and Meaning of Selected Key Works. (Book in Progress)

“Jackson Pollock: Down to the Weave: A Commentary on a Selection of Key Works,” in Helen Harrison, Editor, Such Desperate Joy: Imagining Jackson Pollock, New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press, 2000, pp. 177-194. [11th Annual Pollock-Krasner Lecture, Guild Hall, East Hampton, NY, August 16, 1998.]

“Alfonso Ossorio’s Expressionist Paintings on Paper,” in Alfonso Ossorio: The Child Returns,1950, Philippines, New York: Michael Rosenfeld Gallery, 1998, pp. 5-16.

“Maurice Sievan (1898-1981): An Artist of the New York School,” in Creative Lives: New York Paintings and Photographs by Maurice and Lee Sievan, New York: Museum of the City of New York, 1997, pp. 33-81.

“Jackson Pollock’s Phosphorescence,” in Addison Gallery of American Art: 65 Years, Andover, MA: Addison Gallery of American Art, Philips Academy, 1996, pp.448-9.

“Printing Through to Painting: Jackson Pollock’s Serigraphs.” Exh.Cat. Springs, East Hampton, New York: The Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center, 1995.

“New-Found Pollocks: 1978-1995.” Jackson Pollock: New-Found Works. Exh.Cat. New York: Jason McCoy Inc., 1995.

Supplement Number One - Jackson Pollock: A Catalogue Raisonné of Paintings, Drawings, and Other Works. Editor. New York: The Pollock-Krasner Foundation, Inc., 1995. (Distributor: Ursus Books, New York.)

"Images of Self /​ Icons of Culture: The Symbolic Dynamics of Abstract Expressionism." Unpublished lecture at The New School for Social Research, course on "Issues and Ideas in Art and Art Criticism," Feb. 10, 1992.

"Going West with Jackson Pollock: Thoughts on the Quadruped and Directional Ambivalence in his Art." Unpublished lecture read at symposium on "Transforming the Western Image in Twentieth Century American Art," The Palm Springs Desert Museum, February 29, 1992.

"Jackson Pollock and the Somatic Unconscious: Thoughts on Perinatal Trauma and Essentialist Vision." Unpublished paper for panel on "Jackson Pollock: 'Psychoanalytic' Drawings," Art Museum, Princeton University, April 26, 1992.

"Jackson Pollock's Number 1, 1949," in The Rita and Taft Schreiber Collection. Los Angeles: The Museum of Contemporary Art, 1991.

"Art View: An Undeserved Pulitzer for a Pop Biography." The New York Times, Arts & Leisure Section, May 12, 1991, pp. 37;40. [Commentary on S. Naifeh & G.W. Smith's psychobiography, Jackson Pollock: An American Saga, NY: Clarkson Potter,1990.]

"What is an Artist? - Plain English about Jackson Pollock." Unpublished inaugural address as Robert Sterling Clark Visiting Professor of Art History at Williams College, at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, April 12, 1990.

"Jackson Pollock's Number 2, 1949," in Paul D. Schweizer, et. al. Editors, Masterworks of American Art in the Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1989, pp. 178-79.

"Two Methodologies for the Interpretation of Abstract Expressionism: Part 1 - Notes Towards a Psychodynamic Theory for Historians of Art; Part 2 - Twelve Sonnets for the Abstract Expressionists." Art Journal, Fall,1988, pp. 222-28.

"Jackson Pollock: The Black Pourings," in Jackson Pollock: The Black Pourings,1951 to 1953. Boston: Institute of Contemporary Art, 1980.

"Les photographies de Hans Namuth comme documents d'histoire de l'art," in Hans Namuth, L'atelier de Jackson Pollock. Paris: Macula /​ Pierre Brochet, 1978, pp. 11-15. English edition, Agrinda Publications, Ltd., New York, 1979. Reprinted in Art Journal, Fall 1979, pp. 48-9.

"The Catalogue Raisonné and 'New-found Works'," in Jackson Pollock: New-found Works. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Art Gallery, 1978. (A version of this essay appeared in Horizon, February 1979.)

Jackson Pollock: A Catalogue Raisonné of Paintings, Drawings, and Other Works. Co-Editor with E. V. Thaw. New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1978. 4 Vols. (Out of print)

“Arshile Gorky's Newark Airport Murals: The History of their Making," in Murals Without Walls: Arshile Gorky's Aviation Murals Rediscovered. Newark, New Jersey: The Newark Museum, 1978, pp. 16-29.

"Philip Guston and Political Humanism," in Art and Architecture in the Service of Politics. Edited by Henry A. Millon and Linda Nochlin. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 1978, pp. 342-55.

"Jackson Pollock," in From El Greco to Pollock: Early and Late Works by European and American Artists, edited by Gertrude Rosenthal. Baltimore: Baltimore Museum of Art, 1968, pp. 160-1.

Jackson Pollock. New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1967. (Out of print; docu-mentary chronology revised and reprinted in Vol. 4 of the 1978 Yale catalogue raisonné.)

"The Genesis of Jackson Pollock: 19l2-1943," Artforum, May 1967, pp. 16-23.

Part 5: The Authentication of Works of Art

Stemming from his work on the Pollock-Krasner Authetication Board, Dr. O’Connor has written several essays on the authentication problem.

“Authenticating the Attribution of Art: Connoisseurship and the Law in the Judging of Forgeries, Copies and False Attributions,” in Ronald D. Spencer, Editor, The Expert versus the Object: Judging Fakes and False Attributions in the Visual Arts (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), pp. 3-27.

“The Need for Consensus Connoisseurship in the Authentication Process.” Paper for College Art Association session on “Determining Authenticity and the Implica-tions for Art History” organized by Catalogue Raisonné Scholars Association, New York Conference, February 13, 1997, and published in the CRSA’s August 1997 CRSA Newsletter, pp. 1-4.

“Form as Authenticity in Art and History.” Unpublished paper for College Art Association session on “Authenticity in Art History” chaired by Philippe de Montebello, New York Conference, February 17, 1994. [Gist published in 1997 Spencer anthology.]

Part 6: Entries for Reference Books

The Dictionary of Art. Entries on Jackson Pollock, Thomas Hart Benton, Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco and David Alfaro Siqueiros. London: Macmillan Publishers Limited, 1997.

Encyclopaedia Britannica. Entries for the 1974 edition on Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, and The New Deal Cultural Projects.