No. 5, 1948

Working in oil on fiberboard, Jackson Pollock created this dense web of dripped and splattered paint at the height of his "drip period." The surface pulses with layers of yellow, brown, white, and gray paint applied by dripping, pouring, and flicking from hardened brushes and sticks.

The painting made headlines in 2006 when it reportedly sold for $140 million, then a record price for any painting. Pollock worked on the floor, circling his canvases and entering what he called a near-trance state. The result feels simultaneously chaotic and controlled, with rhythms emerging from the apparent randomness.

The work privately owned and rarely exhibited publicly.