Jackson Pollock was an American Abstract Expressionist painter. Nicknamed "Jack the Dripper", he would literally drip paint (of the most toxic variety) on his canvases in order to create his paintings. He was the first action painter, meaning that he would drip, pour, throw and splash his paint onto very large canvases which were often laid flat on the floor of his New York studio. Many say he would literally dance, as though in a trance, as he created his masterpieces. By the time of his death in 1956, his work and example were exerting an enormous influence on his contemporaries both in the United States and western Europe. He was one of the few American painters to be recognized during his lifetime and afterward as the peer of 20th-century European masters of modern art.