Scientists tried to prove Jackson Pollock’s paintings with fractals: then a doodle passed the test too

In 1999, a team led by physicist Richard Taylor analysed the poured canvases of artist Jackson Pollock and found they were fractal, meaning they contained patterns that repeat at increasingly fine magnifications, the same geometry found in lightning and the branching of trees. The complexity of these fractals, the study found, increased systematically over the decade Pollock spent refining his pouring technique.

Pollock, who laid his canvases flat on a barn floor and dripped, flung and poured industrial enamel paint, had long faced questions from viewers over whether his work required any particular skill. The 1999 fractal finding was celebrated as evidence that his technique carried a level of complexity that could be measured scientifically.

But between 2006 and 2007, a separate team of physicists at Case Western Reserve University — Katherine Jones-Smith, Harsh Mathur and Lawrence Krauss — tested the same fractal criteria against a wider set of images. Two undisputed, museum-authenticated Pollock paintings failed the fractal test. Meanwhile, drip paintings made by two amateur artists who had simply studied Pollock’s technique passed the test comfortably, and freehand doodles of stars and pebbles, sketched in minutes by one of the physicists, also satisfied the same authentication criteria.

The results did not amount to evidence that Pollock’s work was fraudulent. His 1948 painting Number 17A sold privately for $200 million in 2015, a price driven largely by scarcity, provenance and decades of institutional recognition, independent of any fractal analysis.

The episode illustrates a broader pattern in the market for conceptual and abstract art, where high prices often rest on factors such as an artist’s reputation and the ownership history of a specific piece rather than on any single test of authenticity.