Reginald Pollack was born in 1924. He has lived and worked in New York, Paris, Provence, Rome, Virginia, and California. After early art studies at the High School of Music and Art in New York, he gained studio experience with Moses Soyer.

During World War II, Pollack served in the 87th Mountain Infantry, participated in the Invasion of Kiska in the Aleutians, and served with the Air Force in the Southwest Pacific Theater. During his military training in Colorado, he continued his art studies with Boardman Robinson. After the war Pollack studied and painted in Paris for twelve years. During those years he was a neighbor to Constantin Brancusi at the Impasse Ronsin and was also friendly with Giacometti.

Returning to New York in 1961, he was appointed Visiting Critic in Art at Yale University. For the next ten years Pollack exhibited regularly with the Peridot Gallery in New York. After a move to Los Angeles in 1963, he exhibited with the Felix Landau Gallery and the Jefferson Gallery. His work entered many private and public collections, including the Hirshhorn Museum, Museum of Modem Art, National Museum of American Art, and Whitney Museum. Most recently the Metropolitan Museum of Art acquired a painting of his Paris days. During 1997-1998 it was shown nationally in several museums as part of the Metropolitan Museum's travelling group exhibition entitled "Still Life: The Object in American Art, 1915-1995".

The New Orleans Museum of Art in 1998 acquired two major paintings; a show is projected centered around one of the paintings--on the theme of President John F. Kennedy's death; eighty-one drawings related to the Kennedy theme were also acquired by the Museum. An April 1998 exhibit of Pollack's "Birds" was presented by the St. Tammany Art Association to coincide with the Great Louisiana Bird Fest '98. The University of California at Santa Cruz in 1998 acquired two large paintings for the Chancellor's House, "The Forest As Seen by Mozart" and "First Snow". Further, Stanford University's Museum of Art recently acquired a painting of Pollack's Paris days, and the Skirball Cultural Center and Museum in Los Angeles has acquired one painting from the same period as well as one from the 1990's.

Pollack has had more than sixty one-person exhibitions. He continues to paint and sculpt in California. In the Fall of 1998 and again in the Spring of 1999, Pollack gave a talk to the Fine Arts Division of the College of the Desert in Palm Desert, California. In December 1998, fifty of his paintings and sculptures were exhibited at the Merrill Lynch offices in Indian Wells, California; ten of his paintings are on permanent display at those offices. In the Fall of 1998 twelve of Pollack's paintings were installed at the Palm Springs restaurant, Cyranos. Another restaurant, The Chef of Palm Springs, hung two shows during 1998-99.

In May of 1999, two self portraits were hung at the office of the Director of Institutional Advancement of the Eisenhower Medical Center in Rancho Mirage. An exhibition of nine paintings, "Dreamscapes: Paintings with Poglins", was held from March 9 to April 14, 2000, at the Library of the College of the Desert, with half of the proceeds of any sales benefitting the Fine Arts Division of the College. On opening night Pollack followed the opening with a one-hour talk to the Fine Arts Division with additional display of his paintings and sculptures.

Source:
Ruth Robertson Contemporary Fine Art