Unrecorded Pollock Paintings Found in Locker

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Alex Matter, a Manhattan filmmaker, found them in an East Hampton locker while he was going through his parents' possessions. His father, Herbert Matter, was a good friend of Pollock's. Pollock gave him the paintings, and they have been sitting in that locker since the seventies.

Worth up to $10 million, there are 32 small paintings that the artist painted between 1946 and 1949, when he was just beginning to explore drip painting. The New York Times reports that there are two enamel drawings on paper, 22 drip paintings on board and eight unfinished works.

Since the discovery, art historian Ellen G. Landau, who also wrote a book about Pollock and his wife, Lee Krasner, has been restoring and studying the paintings.

"They were very carefully done. And that's not something that's often thought of with Pollock," Matter said, reports New York Newsday. "He was careful and considered. You can see that much more clearly in the small paintings."

FOR FULL STORY SEE: Newsday: "Finding Buried Treasure"
New York Times: "Arts, Briefly: Pollock Trove Disclosed"