"I went out to Springs and saw Pollock and his work, not only the shows [Frankenthaler frequently visited Pollock, and his wife Lee Krasner ]. In 1951 I looked at de Kooning as much as at Pollock.. ..but these came after all the [her] Cubist training and exercise. It all combined to push me on. Like Cubism.. ..I felt many more possibilities in Pollock's work. That is, I looked.. ..and was influenced by both Pollock and De Kooning and eventually felt that there were many more possibilities for me out of the Pollock vocabulary.. .de Kooning made enclosed linear shapes and 'applied' the brush. Pollock used shoulder and ropes and ignored the edges and the corner. I felt I could stretch more in the Pollock framework. I found that in Pollock I also responded to a certain Surreal element – the understated image that was really present: animals, thoughts, jungles, expressions. You could become a de Kooning disciple or satellite or mirror, but you could depart from Pollock."