Blue Poles electrifying says London critic

Blue Poles, the famously controversial abstract artwork labelled an epic waste of $1.3 million when acquired in 1973, appears to be wowing the London arts crowd.

"It is an electrifying sight, with flickering skeins of paint criss-crossing like the neural pathways of the brain and the dark blue shadows of the title -- like spears, totems or military standards -- falling across the whole," wrote Spectator arts critic Martin Gayford.

Now worth an estimated $350 million, Jackson Pollock's masterpiece Blue Poles has left its usual home in the National Gallery of Australia to go on display at the Royal Academy of Arts in London as part of an exhibition celebrating artists of 1950s New York.