Jackson Pollock Thomas Hart Benton American Paintings New Computer Program May Spot Art Forgeries The Yankee Cure Sotheby’s American Sale Outperforms Dealer Holly Solomon’s Papers Headed to Smithsonian Warhols Send Sotheby’s Soaring

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Adams, who teaches at Case Western Reserve University, explains that it was his wife who first noticed the letters in Pollock’s Mural (1942–43), which is in the collection of the University of Iowa Museum of Art, while looking at it upside down. His explanation is detailed in his new book on Pollock, Tom and Jerry, which will be published in December.

While some scholars have praised aspects of the book, which focuses on the relationship between Pollock and his teacher Thomas Hart Benton, many experts have questioned his unusual claim.

“It’s a Rorschach-blob situation,” said Pepe Karmel, an art historian at New York University. “There are a lot of loops, curves, and lines in Mural. Evidently, by picking and choosing among them, you can spell out the words ‘Jackson Pollock,’ but that doesn’t mean the words are there.”

Mural also made headlines in August 2008, when the Iowa Board of Regents proposed selling the work, then valued at about $100 million, in order to pay for repairs to the museum, which had been severely damaged in a flood earlier that year.

Read more at ArtNews.