POLES APART

Poles apart: the journey of Blue poles from New York City to Canberra

This page: Blue poles in former owner Ben Heller’s Central Park West apartment, New York, in the early 1970s. To extract the painting, one of the apartment’s windows was removed; using ropes and pullies, seven men delicately hoisted the load to ground level, where the street was blocked off, and into a van for its trip to Australia in 1974.

Right: 1. Blue poles being loaded onto an RAAF plane during the national tour in 1974. 2. The painting was exhibited around the country before arriving in Canberra. 3. Installing the enormous work took many hands. 4. Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, accompanied by former Chairman Gordon Darling and founding Director James Mollison, inspects Blue poles at the National Gallery opening gala in 1982. 5.Jackson Pollock, Blue poles 1952, oil, enamel, aluminium paint, glass on canvas, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, purchased 1973 *© Pollock-Krasner Foundation. Blue poles is one of the most famous works in the national collection.

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