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Jack Whitten didn't restrict himself to ordinary paint.
MoMA documents an extraordinary range of unconventional materials that appeared in his work.
They included octopus and cuttlefish ink, coffee, herbs, walnuts, insects, recycled glass, pulverized Mylar, gold dust, and even sweepings from his studio floor.
Whitten spent summers in Crete for decades, where he fished and hunted octopus.
He also created his own painting tools rather than relying entirely on conventional brushes.
One was a roughly 12-foot-wide device he called the Developer, which he dragged across layers of paint.
The tool could weigh around 40 pounds depending on its configuration.
His work shows that a painting's materials can extend far beyond anything you'd expect to find in an art-supply store.
© Museum of Modern Art (2025)