[John] Cage was asked to provide music for a film on the work of Jackson Pollock. The directors, Hans Namuth and Paul Falkenberg, had thought to use Balinese music, but Pollock wanted something more American; his wife, Lee Krasner, approached Cage. As Cage later told Irving Sadler, "I couldn't abide Pollock's work because I couldn't stand the man." He recalled elsewhere, Pollock "was generally so drunk, and he was actually an unpleasant person for me to encounter. I remember seeing him on the same side of the street I was, and I would always cross over to the other side." This is probably the strongest expression of dislike by Cage on record. Cage refused Krasner's request but referred her to [Morton] Feldman, who accepted it in return for an ink drawing.
David Revill: The Roaring Silence. John Cage: A Life
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