The Key, 1946 by Jackson Pollock

The Key belongs to Jackson Pollock's Accabonac Creek series, named for a stream near the East Hampton property that he and his wife, the painter Lee Krasner, purchased in late 1945. Marking a crucial moment in his evolution as an artist, this quasi-Surrealist painting was created on the floor of an upstairs bedroom and worked on directly from all sides. Although there is a general suggestion of landscape, here the process of painting became primary, expressing the power of spontaneous action and chance effects. The resulting abstraction, with its expressive, gestural appearance, prefigured the allover compositions of Pollock's celebrated drip paintings, which debuted the following year.

It is widely believed that the paint was given its name (The Key) to signify a new beginning to the field of American artwork at a time when European paintings dominated the art-scene.

Its expressive and prefigured features are just but a few of the many gems behind its high and note-worthy rank in the modern world of arts.