Publication Date: May 19, 2026
Set in New York City in alternating time periods—the 1950s and the early 2000s—Pollock’s Last Lover is the engrossing tale of two women whose lives collide as they contend with the art and legacy of the brilliant, tragic painter Jackson Pollock.
In 2006, Sotheby’s sells a painting by Jackson Pollock for $140 million—the highest sum ever paid for a work of art. Two weeks later, an older woman named Ruth Kligman, in high heels and a dusty fascinator, contacts a smaller, less prominent auction house to announce that she was Pollock’s lover, and that he gave her his last painting. She declares that it was selfish to keep it in her apartment for fifty years, and that people should see this masterpiece in galleries and museums the world over. The bidding will start at $50 million.
Gwen, an up-and-coming associate at the firm, is assigned the task of verifying the painting’s authenticity. For Gwen, an ambitious woman in a field often dominated by men, it is her biggest project yet. And the company must have absolute certainty. Yet each step of the investigation raises larger questions—about Ruth’s cunning climb in the art world, and even about what caused Pollock’s sudden and violent death.
What follows, in alternating chapters and time periods, is a multigenerational portrait of women’s ambition set against the life and work of Jackson Pollock. From smoky Greenwich Village dive bars to glitzy art auctions, from the empty studio of a man once known for his artistic stamina to the fine museums where his works hang, Ruth’s controversial painting provides a window into two eras—and the ongoing struggle of women to develop power and freedom on their own terms.
The purported “last painting” by notorious artist Jackson Pollock surfaces for potential auction. However, the provenance of the piece—and its passionate history—becomes a ticking time bomb of a puzzle for an ambitious woman in Pollock’s Last Lover byStephen P. Kiernan.
Gwen is an associate at a small auction firm in New York City, working hard to climb the professional ladder in a male-dominated field, when her boss assigns her a prize assignment: investigate a potential client’s claim that she owns the last painting of Pollock and potentially catapult her career if the artwork can be authenticated. But a wrinkle in the ointment is Ruth Kligman: the woman who owns the painting and professes to be Pollock’s last lover. Gwen must wrestle the truth from this dramatic, neurotic woman in small doses, as Ruth slowly reveals the story of how she met “Jackson” and how the painting came to be hers.
This storytelling works well as Kiernan alternates chapters between Ruth’s point of view in the 1950s and Gwen’s in the early aughts. As Gwen sends out the painting for a thorough forensic workup, she juggles her 30-day deadline with an exciting—if ill-timed—new romance with a tall British coworker who reminds her what it is to be desired. Kiernan deftly parallels Ruth’s story as an ingenue in the Big Apple circa 1950s, with her experience modeling and the sexual harassment and objectification she endures, with Gwen’s modern-day experiences in the workplace, where her only advocate against male competition and harassment is herself. A potent theme of the novel is the timelessness of uncouth, boorish male behavior toward women, as it abounds in both time periods.
These alternating jumps in the narrative are propulsive, giving readers a fascinating window into Pollock’s antics, infamous drinking, tortured psyche, and his storied death at the wheel of his green Oldsmobile—with Ruth being the only survivor. Kiernan sets up this climactic moment by first building up the “relationship” between Ruth and Jackson, one that is explicitly one-sided. Pollock was married to the artist Lee Krasner, and this love triangle fuels much of the “last painting” drama as Kiernan makes the unusual—but effective—decision to leave Lee alive in 2007 to get the last word, as it were (she died in 1984).
The story relies on facts but employs fiction throughout, and it is up to the discerning reader to see where Kiernan parts ways with the official record and chronologies of his historical subjects’ lives. The result is a delicious and, dare I say, intoxicated tale of love and lust in all its manifestations: for art, alcohol, food, sex, and everything that makes life worth living. Kiernan’s fictional characters in 2007 are pitch-perfect in their language, droll wit, and ever-present sarcasm; his depictions of Pollock do the man no favors, but more to the point, it is the artist’s own record of raging alcoholism and louche behavior with women that makes him unsympathetic.
Likewise, Kiernan’s version of Ruth is likable up until the moment she meets Pollock, when suddenly she turns into a wild-eyed, besotted woman who believes their “love” is destiny. The way she speaks to Jackson jars modern ears with its treacly and Victorian expressions of love and adoration, however. In this, Gwen holds a mirror up to Ruth’s rosy vision of the past: “it was our destiny” is a convenient lie Ruth tells herself in lieu of the darker truth … “we committed adultery.” The mirror goes both ways, however, and Gwen sees the cost of her own ambitions and what she is willing to surrender to achieve them—can love and a fulfilling career truly exist for the modern woman?
Pollock’s Last Lover is a lusty, intoxicating ode to the passions that seduce the body, deceive the mind, and betray the heart.
Stephen P. Kiernan newest novel, POLLOCK’S LAST LOVER, comes out on May 19, 2026. As a journalist and novelist, he has had five million words in print. His other novels are The Glass Chateau, Universe of Two, The Baker’s Secret, The Hummingbird, and The Curiosity. Stephen also wrote two books of nonfiction: Last Rights, and Authentic Patriotism. With options sold for TV and film production, and novels translated into many languages, his work has won more than 40 awards. He lives in Vermont.
