Tests cast doubt on Pollock works

It is suggested the new paintings may have been experimental

Scientific tests on recently-found paintings said to be by Jackson Pollock have cast doubt on their authenticity.

Harvard University researchers say tests on three works have identified pigments only commercially available after the US artist's death in 1956.

But owner Alex Matter said varnish used to restore the pictures could have contaminated the paint samples.

The paintings are three of 32 that Mr Matter says he found among possessions of his late parents, who knew Pollock.

The Harvard study did not say the works were not by Pollock, but suggested they were at least altered after his death, according to lead researcher Narayan Khandekar.

Mr Matter claims he found the works in 2002 in his father's storage facility in Long Island, New York.

He began showing them publicly after they were authenticated in 2005 by art history professor Ellen Landau.

Geometry study

In response to the Harvard study, Mr Matter pointed out that the researchers had dated the paintings' cardboard backing to before Pollock's death.

He said a number of leading Pollock scholars had attributed the paintings to the artist, adding: "Nothing in the Harvard report effectively challenges that."

University of Oregon research also raised doubts over the authenticity of the paintings last year.

Analysis found "significant differences" between geometric patterns in six of the new paintings and previous Pollock works.

Prof Landau said at the time that if they were not by Pollock, they would be "the most amazing fakes in modern art history".

Jackson Pollock's work had a major influence on art in the latter half of the 20th Century, sparking the emergence of abstract expressionism.

But the artist battled alcoholism and depression and is generally regarded as a self-destructive, tortured genius. He died in a car crash in 1956, aged 44.