During the fall of 1944 and spring of 1945, Jackson Pollock experimented with the technique of engraving, creating eleven copperplates under the tutelage of the artist Reuben Kadish. ... The plates were created as part of a process of personal discovery rather than to produce marketable results. The expressive, automatist drawings were made using a Surrealist improvisational technique believed to release the true reality of the artist's thoughts and emotions from the control of the conscious mind.

from Snite Museum of Art, Selected Works: Snite Museum of Art (Notre Dame, 2005)