In July 1943, Pollock began preparing for his first solo exhibition. Less than four months are left, but the prospect of a solo exhibition inspires Pollock's strongest energy, and the months that follow are a brilliant creative period for him.
Strong self-confidence led Pollock to believe that he would be able to complete the murals in Peggy's home at the same time during this time. He wanted to paint a large painting twenty feet long and nine feet high. To do this, he also knocked down the wall between his studio and Lee's. But by the end of his exhibition, the twenty-foot canvas was empty. Obviously, Pollock needed more time to think about it.
The following months were the most prolific and creative period of Pollock's life. He completed ten new paintings, among which the well-known ones are "The Wolf", "The Keeper of the Secret" and "The Circle Divided by the Moon Woman". The works go from one to the other without any repetition, and their only common feature is the concentration of American Indian culture. In "The Circle Divided by the Moon Woman", the black head wears a bright and delicate feathered headdress, which seems to mock the war. Other works make extensive use of arrowheads, rod-shaped totems, and X-shaped, zigzag shapes. The shapes that Pollock borrowed from American Indian art were a good fit for him as a professional painter – helping him establish his own independent style of painting, free from the influence of foreign pioneers.
One of the most representative works of this period is The Wolf. It's a huge banner. In this painting, Pollock borrows the shape of Picasso's horned bull, and uses thick, heavy outlines to represent the image of a wolf, with splashes of color on the background. The title of the painting is also reminiscent of the mythological story of the she-wolf who raised Romulus and Remus, the founders of the Roman city, but Pollock's "The Wolf" has nothing to do with a specific mythological story.
Although the title of the painting is "The Wolf", it is not just a she-wolf. The so-called she-wolf is actually a wolf with two rear parts connected together. On the left is a male wolf, apparently of Picasso; On the right is a she-wolf, overlapping with a U.S. cent depicting a bison, connected by a thick red line running from the male wolf's head to the bison's head. It can be said that "The Wolf" is a descendant of the bulls of Europe and the buffalo of the United States, and is Pollock's answer to Picasso's contempt for the legendary image of the bull.
Pollock never gave any explanation for his paintings. "The she-wolf exists because I painted it. For me, talking about anything about it, or trying to explain it inexplicably, can only undermine it. When asked to explain the painting "The Wolf," Pollock replied.
In his portraits of the main works such as The Wolf and The Keeper of the Secret, Pollock also painted small works, usually starting with several paintings at the same time. When painting large paintings, Pollock sometimes had to interrupt his work to wait for the colors to dry or to think. At this point, he would use pencil, ink or gouache to make small drawings. Among the small works of this period are four small paintings without titles, which Pollock used the technique of drip painting to complete them. However, unlike the "drip painting" style that Pollock established four years later to reflect his interests, these small paintings did not have a high level of passion.
At the same time as Pollock was preparing for the exhibition, Peggy Guggenheim was also promoting the exhibition. She published the news of the exhibition and Pollock's profile in the newspaper, and made a four-page catalogue of the exhibition.
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