There is no evidence that Pollock interacted with any scientists - indeed chaos theory had not been discovered when Pollock started his action paintings. The situation is very different today. Established artists like Cornelia Parker and Antony Gormley produce works like Cold Dark Matter and Quantum Cloud, and there are now a significant number of formal collaborations taking place between artists and scientists. These range from maverick pairings, such as plans to use a Damien Hirst spot painting to test instruments on the Beagle 2 lander on Mars Express, to full-blown collaborations like Signatures of the Invisible.
In the November issue of Physics World, Ciara Muldoon and Peter Rodgers look at the interactions between physics and the visual arts