“Janet Sobel (May 31, 1893 – November 11, 1968), born Jennie Olechovsky, was a Ukrainian-born American Abstract Expressionist painter whose career started mid-life, at age forty-five^[2] in 1938. Sobel pioneered the drip painting technique that directly influenced Jackson Pollock. She was credited as exhibiting the first instance of all-over painting seen by Clement Greenberg, a notable art critic.”—Wikipedia

When her father was killed in a pogrom, she, with her midwife mother and siblings immigrated to the United States. Here she married quite young, raised five children, and began painting at age 37. In the following years she created a revolutionary way to paint and to approach painting.

This morning I read an essay promoting a new book by Noah Charney, “the internationally best-selling author of more than a dozen books.” His essay, “Drip Painting Was Actually Invented by a Ukrainian Grandmother… Not Jackson Pollock” arrived today as a blurb from Lit Hub.

Two problems with this. The easy one; I did in fact know Janet Sobel’s name, though I am inclined to misspell it and like generations of students taking Art History in college we never studied a single female painter. The stickier issue is that a someone already wrote this essay.

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