To stop people trying to find representational elements in his paintings, Pollock abandoned titles for his paintings and started numbering them instead. Pollock said someone looking at a painting should “look passively -- and try to receive what the painting has to offer and not bring a subject matter or preconceived idea of what they are to be looking for.”8
Lee Krasner said Pollock "used to give his pictures conventional titles … but now he simply numbers them. Numbers are neutral. They make people look at a picture for what it is -- pure painting.”9
