2019 Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, Inc. / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Direct link to Mengyuan Chen's post Do anyone also fancy the . Her work has been the subject of several retrospective exhibitions, including a 1989 retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, and been exhibited worldwide since the 1950s. The rules and risks and possibilities mentioned by Frankenthaler were meant by the artist in reference to her art, to the traditions and conventions that are acknowledged or altered or discarded by it, to the unknown territory it opens before us and explores, to the deep significance of its creativity. For episode transcripts, images, and additional resources, visit our website at getty.edu/recordingartists. You know, you made that and its great, you bastard; now Im going to run home, make one, and bring it and show you; dont you love it? Aug. 29, 2019. If you're behind a web filter, please make sure that the domains *.kastatic.org and *.kasandbox.org are unblocked. https://www.thoughtco.com/painting-technique-of-helen-frankenthaler-4118620 (accessed July 17, 2023). Helen Frankenthaler pouring paint onto a large unprimed canvas as part of her soak-stain technique of painting. Frankenthaler began exhibiting her large-scale abstract expressionist paintings in contemporary museums and galleries in the early 1950s. Heres Frankenthaler telling Barbara Rose about her first meeting with Louis and Noland, both of whom were friendly with Clement Greenberg: FRANKENTHALER: Ken had known Clem at Black Mountain, and brought Morris to meet Clem. Ive invited LA-based artist Rodney McMillian and Stanford University art historian Alexander Nemerov to speak with me about these interviews. Let us know. How Helen Frankenthaler Pioneered a New Form of Abstract She knows that you can see a breakthrough in another artists workjust as she did with Pollockand that it can propel you back into your studio in an attempt to take that new move and make it your own. Heres Rose asking about Pollock: ROSE: Did you know Jackson before you saw the paintings or? Nemerov notes that unlike many other artists of the time, Frankenthaler had been raised by a well-to-do family on the Upper East Side. So its not mysterious, why she has this sense of entitlement or And I dont mean entitlement in a pejorative way in this sense, but more like the sense of possibility. And I was very nervous, because I knew what it meant to Clem. Frankenthaler: A Catalogue Raisonn, Prints 1961-1994. Lisa Marder is an artist and educator who studied drawing and painting at Harvard University. And that was sort of, let er rip. There they saw Mountains and Sea and were deeply impressed by it, and they returned to Washington determined to explore its technical implications. MOLESWORTH: I also wanted to hear about Rodneys perception of Frankenthalers relationship to landscape. Dabs of color had to stand for real things. Helen Frankenthaler: Paintings. Mountains and Sea, 1952, painted when Helen Frankenthaler was 23 years old, was her first professionally exhibited work. Frankenthaler's beautiful abstract paintings might not look like the landscapes to which their titles refer, but theircolor, grandeur, and beauty transport the viewer there nonetheless and made a powerful impact on the future of abstract art. Surrounded by water Provincetown is renowned for its exquisite northern light. MOLESWORTH: We cant really talk about Frankenthalers endeavor without talking about pouring and staining. One of the things Frankenthaler said about painting and pouring on the floor, rather than painting at an easel, was that it meant she could use her whole body, not just work from her wrist. The book ends a decade later after Frankenthaler had succeeded in launching a career that would span more than half a century. But then say Sonia or I would say something about a Mondrian, and he would do a complete double take in the middle of it. FRANKENTHALER: We lived at 74th Street and Park, and the Mets at 82nd and Fifth. The Bay was chosen as one of the paintings for the American pavilion of the 1966 Venice Biennale. Equally radical was that he had started to place his canvases on the floor rather than an on easel. And he was encouraging. All requests to license archival audio or out of copyright film clips should be addressed to Scala Archives at [emailprotected]. And maybe its no different than what Pollock, you know, got from the European modernists that he was engaged with. 4 (1984-85): 793-98. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1989. Its all thats expected of them. More specifically, the rule in the 1950s was articulated by critic Harold Rosenberg, a champion of de Kooning, who called for a muscular encounter between artist and medium and a no-holds-barred gestural painting. The day portrayed all the unsung but glorious moments that make up a day on Earth thats what her work really gets at, Nemerov said, reflecting on what drew him to the abstract expressionists work. Its significance was immediately grasped by a number of artists who were searching for alternatives to abstract expressionisms (and especially de Koonings) more physical approach to paint. New York: Harry N. Abrams; Fort Worth: Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, 1989. If you would like to publish text from MoMAs archival materials, please fill out this permission form and send to [emailprotected]. Helen Frankenthaler | Smithsonian American Art Museum That last sentence, sentiment and nuance are being squeezed out, is crucial. Inspired by Pollocks pouring and dripping of paint, as well as by the watercolors she herself had produced the previous summer, Frankenthalers soak-stain technique enabled an entirely new experience of pictorial color: fresh, breathing, disembodied, exhilarating in its unfettered appeal to eyesight alone. She was a major contributor to the history of postwar American painting. Solomon, Deborah. Collection Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, New York, on extended loan to . Marder, Lisa. She enjoyed two New York retrospective exhibitions before the 1960s ended, at the Jewish Museum and the Whitney Museum. It was very beautiful. Today, Frankenthaler's works are held in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, among others. One of the major abstract expressionist painters of the 20th century, Frankenthaler died Tuesday at her home in Connecticut. He was no star teacher. ALEXANDER NEMEROV: Her greatest paintings speak to what is almost an impossible thing for an artist of any time, which is to somehow get life on the quick, life on the wing, into the works of art, so that the works of art dont feel like a pale petrification of lived experience, but you feel that you actually are in the presence, in the thick of life as it is lived and as it is transmuted into aesthetic form by this wondrously talented and sensitive and difficult artist. New and indeed remarkable was Frankenthalers application of her oil medium, which she thinned to the consistency of watercolor so that it would soak into and stain the canvas rather than accumulate on its surface. They really admired it, admired me, wondered at it, and were going to lick it. While some critics found Frankenthalers early work too light in terms of technique and subject, preferring her more stately work from the 1960s, Nemerov said he always found the early work very powerful. FRANKENTHALER: I think a certain attitude that was probably in me already, but I hadnt used it yet. The young Frankenthaler sees herself as participating in history in the making. Not any criticism of Nemser, but just Helen feeling, perhaps, that this person is less of an insider, like an approved insider to her work, which Barbara Rose wouldve been. He wasnt nervous about it, but I had no opinion and I had no experience and I had an interest, and I was on guard. FRANKENTHALER: I call them abstract paintings. One thing I have never liked is a drip. NEMSER: No, I dont think thats whats there, but there seems to be a landscape quality in the work, or a kind of reference. I love Bennington girls. "With many Abstract Expressionist paintings of the 1950s and 60s, its important not to get too caught up with possible social and historical contexts and biography, but to focus on whats before us." In 2001, she was awarded the National Medal of Arts. But in looking back at some of the work, its like, oh, she was completely, like, a landscape painter. She was a major contributor to the history of postwar American painting. By visiting our website or transacting with us, you agree to this. Her nephew is the artist/photographer Clifford Ross. There she met Clement Greenberg, one of the foremost art critics of the day and a recognized spokesman for the then-emerging New York School. HELEN MOLESWORTH: This is Recording Artists, a podcast from the Getty dedicated to exploring art and artists through the archives of the Getty Research Institute. Would The Bay be considered shallow or deep? Frankenthaler was the subject of numerous retrospectives in New York during her lifetime, including at the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, and the Museum of Modern Art. She states emphatically that she doesnt like the drip, by which I take her to mean that shes not interested in chance or the lack of painterly control implied by a drip. Article Wikipedia article References Helen Frankenthaler was an American abstract expressionist painter. Having exhibited her work for over six decades (early 1950s until 2011), she spanned several generations of abstract painters while continuing to produce vital and . Do you have the grit to kind of be in that world? Great moving art that speaks the truth is beautiful art.". FRANKENTHALER: Its a kind of boring accident to me, a drip. The influential mid-20th century art critic, Clement Greenberg, a close friend of Frankenthaler (and Pollock), believed that if art made after the trauma of the second world war was going to have any real impact on the social consciousness of Americans it would have to radically change and move towards the abstract. We see an imposing fluid blue promontory suspended in front of us. Marder, Lisa. And thats not the case for the 99% rest of us, or many others. Through her soak-stain technique, the canvas and paint became one, emphasizing the flatness of the painting even while they conveyed great space. As an active painter for nearly six decades, she went through a variety of phases and stylistic shifts. Like Color Field Paintings and Gesture Paintings. Helen Frankenthaler (December 12, 1928 - December 27, 2011) was an American abstract expressionist painter. Frankenthaler's technical departures from standard approaches to painting and innovative use of color and composition made her one of the most influential . In these paintings, she combined drip techniques with her own innovation of thinning oil paints until they soaked into the canvas like watercolors, creating breathtaking, disembodied color fields. During high school she studied with the Mexican artist Rufino Tamayo, who taught her to value craftsmanship and materials. Id start with one piece of chalk behind the Met. Her awards include First Prize for Painting, Premiere Biennale de Paris, 1959; Joseph E. Temple Gold Medal Award, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, 1968; Annual Creative Artist Laureate Award of American Jewish Congress, 1974; Extraordinary Woman of Achievement Award, National Conference of Christians and Jews, New York, 1978; New York City Mayors Award of Honor for Arts and Culture, 1986; and Distinguished Artist Award for Lifetime Achievement, College Art Association, 1994. Getty Research Institute, 2000.R.19 (b.28, 184-185). We expect paintings to speak in some kind of internal way, but what Helen does is show the glory of the daily the impression, the vivid sensation walking down the street on a winter day in New York in 1953 or being at the seashore, said Nemerov, who is also chair of the Department of Art and Art History. Frankenthalers approach here was to use a soak-stain method with diluted acrylic paint. Helen Frankenthaler's "Off White Square," 1973, is part of the "Color as Field" exhibit at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C. See Paintings from the Exhibit. And she has lectured and conducted seminars at the School of Fine Arts, University of Pennsylvania (1967), Princeton University (1971), Bennington College (1972), Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, Harvard University (1976), and the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Maine (1986). The unpainted areas of the canvas became important shapes in their own right and integral to the composition of the painting. Photograph by Burt Glinn / Magnum Photos Helen Frankenthaler, A Brief Biography Helen Frankenthaler (1928-2011), whose career spanned six decades, has long been recognized as one of the great American artists of the twentieth century.