Helen Frankenthaler (December 12, 1928 – December 27, 2011) was an American

abstract expressionist Abstract expressionism is a post–World War II art movement in American painting, developed in New York City in the 1940s. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve international influence and put New York at the center of the ...

painter. She was a major contributor to the history of postwar American painting. 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 ever-changing new work. Frankenthaler began exhibiting her large-scale abstract expressionist paintings in contemporary museums and galleries in the early 1950s. She was included in the 1964 ''

Post-Painterly Abstraction Post-painterly abstraction is a term created by art critic Clement Greenberg as the title for an exhibit he curated for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 1964, which subsequently travelled to the Walker Art Center and the Art Gallery of Toront ...

'' exhibition curated by Clement Greenberg that introduced a newer generation of abstract painting that came to be known as color field. Born in

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

, she was influenced by Greenberg,

Hans Hofmann Hans Hofmann (March 21, 1880 – February 17, 1966) was a German-born American painter, renowned as both an artist and teacher. His career spanned two generations and two continents, and is considered to have both preceded and influenced Abstrac ...

, and

Jackson Pollock Paul Jackson Pollock (; January 28, 1912August 11, 1956) was an American painter and a major figure in the abstract expressionist movement. He was widely noticed for his " drip technique" of pouring or splashing liquid household paint onto a hor ...

's paintings. Her work has been the subject of several retrospective exhibitions, including a 1989 retrospective at the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...

in New York City, and been exhibited worldwide since the 1950s. In 2001, she was awarded the

National Medal of Arts The National Medal of Arts is an award and title created by the United States Congress in 1984, for the purpose of honoring artists and Patronage, patrons of the arts. A prestigious American honor, it is the highest honor given to artists and ar ...

. Frankenthaler had a home and studio in Darien, Connecticut.

Early life and education

Helen Frankenthaler was born on December 12, 1928, in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

."Helen Frankenthaler"
Britannica, Retrieved 24 December 2014. Her father was Alfred Frankenthaler, a New York State Supreme Court judge. Her mother, Martha (Lowenstein), had emigrated with her family from

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

to the United States shortly after she was born. Her two sisters, Marjorie and

Gloria Gloria may refer to: Arts and entertainment Music Christian liturgy and music * Gloria in excelsis Deo, the Greater Doxology, a hymn of praise * Gloria Patri, the Lesser Doxology, a short hymn of praise ** Gloria (Handel) ** Gloria (Jenkins) ...

, were six and five years older, respectively. Growing up on Manhattan's

Upper East Side The Upper East Side, sometimes abbreviated UES, is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 96th Street to the north, the East River to the east, 59th Street to the south, and Central Park/Fifth Avenue to the wes ...

, Frankenthaler absorbed the privileged background of a cultured and progressive Jewish intellectual family that encouraged all three daughters to prepare themselves for professional careers. Her nephew is the artist/photographer

Clifford Ross Clifford Ross (born October 15, 1952) is an American artist who has worked in multiple forms of media, including sculpture, painting, photography and video. His work is in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the J. Paul Getty Museum, the ...

. Frankenthaler studied at the

Dalton School The Dalton School, originally the Children's University School, is a private, coeducational college preparatory school in New York City and a member of both the Ivy Preparatory School League and the New York Interschool. The school is located in ...

under muralist Rufino Tamayo and also at Bennington College in Vermont. While at Bennington College, Frankenthaler studied under the direction of

Paul Feeley Paul Feeley (July 27, 1910 − June 10, 1966) was an artist and director of the Art Department at Bennington College during the 1950s and early 1960s. Overview Though Feeley was born in the same generation as the Abstract Expressionists, his ...

, who is credited with helping her understand pictorial composition, as well as influencing her early cubist-derived style. Upon her graduation in 1949, she studied privately with Australian-born painter Wallace Harrison, and with

in 1950. She met Clement Greenberg in 1950 and had a five-year relationship with him. She later married

Robert Motherwell Robert Motherwell (January 24, 1915 – July 16, 1991) was an American Abstract Expressionism, abstract expressionist Painting, painter, printmaker, and editor of ''The Dada Painters and Poets: an Anthology''. He was one of the youngest of th ...

, another painter, in 1958; the couple divorced in 1971. Both born of wealthy parents, they were known as "the golden couple" and for their lavish entertaining. She gained two stepdaughters from him, Jeannie Motherwell and Lise Motherwell. Jeannie Motherwell studied painting at Bard College and the Art Students League in New York. Continuing with her art after college, she became active in arts education at the Bruce Museum in Greenwich, CT, until relocating to Cambridge, MA, where she worked at Boston University for the graduate program in Arts Administration until 2015. She served on the Cambridge Arts Council Public Art Commission from 2004 - 2007 and is a member of the advisory board of ''

Provincetown Arts ''Provincetown Arts'' is an annual magazine published in midsummer that focuses on artists, performers and writers who inhabit or visit Lower Cape Cod and the cultural life of the nation's oldest continuous artists' colony in Provincetown. Drawing ...

'' magazine (since 2019). Jeannie Motherwell had a show at Rafius Fane Gallery, Boston, Mass. titled Pour, Push, Layer. She is currently represented by M Fine Arts Galerie in Boston, MA and The Schoolhouse Gallery in Provincetown, MA. In 1994, Frankenthaler married Stephen M. DuBrul, Jr., an investment banker who served the

Gerald Ford administration Gerald is a male Germanic given name meaning "rule of the spear" from the prefix ''ger-'' ("spear") and suffix ''-wald'' ("rule"). Variants include the English given name Jerrold, the feminine nickname Jeri and the Welsh language Gerallt and Iri ...

. Frankenthaler had been on the faculty of

Hunter College Hunter College is a public university in New York City. It is one of the constituent colleges of the City University of New York and offers studies in more than one hundred undergraduate and postgraduate fields across five schools. It also admi ...

Style and technique

Active as a painter for nearly six decades, Frankenthaler passed through many phases and stylistic shifts. Initially associated with

abstract expressionism Abstract expressionism is a post–World War II art movement in American painting, developed in New York City in the 1940s. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve international influence and put New York at the center of the ...

because of her focus on forms latent in nature, Frankenthaler is identified with the use of fluid shapes, abstract masses, and lyrical gestures. She made use of large formats on which she painted, generally, simplified abstract compositions. Her style is notable in its emphasis on spontaneity, as Frankenthaler herself stated, "A really good picture looks as if it's happened at once." Frankenthaler's official artistic career was launched in 1952 with the exhibition of ''

Mountains and Sea ''Mountains and Sea'' is a 1952 painting by American abstract expressionist painter Helen Frankenthaler. Painted when Frankenthaler was 23 years old, it was her first professionally exhibited work. Though initially panned by critics, ''Mountains ...

''. Throughout the 1950s, her works tended to be centered compositions, meaning the majority of the pictorial incident took place in the middle of the canvas itself, while the edges were of little consequence to the compositional whole. In 1957, Frankenthaler began to experiment with linear shapes and more organic, sun-like, rounded forms in her works. In the 1960s, her style shifted towards the exploration of symmetrical paintings, as she began to place strips of colors near the edges of her paintings, thus involving the edges as a part of the compositional whole. With this shift in composition came a general simplification of Frankenthaler's style. She began to make use of single stains and blots of solid color against white backgrounds, often in the form of geometric shapes. Beginning in 1963, Frankenthaler began to use acrylic paints rather than oil paints because they allowed for both opacity and sharpness when put on the canvas. By the 1970s, she had done away with the soak stain technique entirely, preferring thicker paint that allowed her to employ bright colors almost reminiscent of

Fauvism Fauvism /ˈfoʊvɪzm̩/ is the style of ''les Fauves'' (French language, French for "the wild beasts"), a group of early 20th-century modern artists whose works emphasized painterly qualities and strong colour over the Representation (arts), repr ...

. Throughout the 1970s, Frankenthaler explored the joining of areas of the canvas through the use of modulated hues, and experimented with large, abstract forms. Her work in the 1980s was characterized as much calmer, with its use of muted colors and relaxed brushwork. "Once one's true talent begins to emerge, one is freer in a way but less free in another way, since one is a captive of this necessity and deep urge".

Color field painting

In 1960, the term color field painting was used to describe the work of Frankenthaler. In general, this term refers to the application of large areas, or fields, of color to the canvas. This style was characterized by the use of hues that were similar in tone or intensity, as well as large formats and simplified compositions, all of which are qualities descriptive of Frankenthaler's work from the 1960s onward. The color field artists differed from

s in their attempted erasure of emotional, mythic, and religious content.

Technique

Frankenthaler often painted onto unprimed canvas with oil paints that she heavily diluted with turpentine, a technique that she named "soak stain." This allowed for the colors to soak directly into the canvas, creating a liquefied, translucent effect that strongly resembled watercolor. Soak stain was also said to be the ultimate fusing of image and canvas, drawing attention to the flatness of the painting itself. The major disadvantage of this method, however, is that the oil in the paints will eventually cause the canvas to discolor and rot away. The technique was adopted by other artists, notably Morris Louis (1912–1962) and

Kenneth Noland Kenneth Noland (April 10, 1924 – January 5, 2010) was an American painter. He was one of the best-known American color field painters, although in the 1950s he was thought of as an abstract expressionist and in the early 1960s he was though ...

(1924–2010), and launched the second generation of the color field school of painting.Fenton, Terry.
Morris Louis
. sharecom.ca. Retrieved December 8, 2008 Frankenthaler often worked by laying her canvas out on the floor, a technique inspired by

. Frankenthaler preferred to paint in privacy. If assistants were present, she preferred them to be inconspicuous when not needed.

Influences

One of her most important influences was Clement Greenberg (1909–1994), an art and literary critic with whom she had a personal friendship and who included her in the ''

'' exhibition that he curated in 1964. Through Greenberg she was introduced to the New York art scene. Under his guidance she spent the summer of 1950 studying with

(1880–1966), catalyst of the Abstract Expressionist movement. The first Jackson Pollock show Frankenthaler saw was at the Betty Parsons Gallery in 1950. She had this to say about seeing Pollock's paintings ''Autumn Rhythm, Number 30, 1950'' (1950), ''Number One,1950 (Lavender Mist)'' (1950):

It was all there. I wanted to live in this land. I had to live there, and master the language.

Some of her thoughts on painting:

John Elderfield John Elderfield (born 25 April 1943) was Chief Curator of Painting and Sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, from 2003 to 2008.''Who’s Who 2011'', A&C Black, 2011 He served as the Allen R. Adler, Class of 1967, Distinguished Curator a ...

wrote that the watercolors of

Paul Cézanne Paul Cézanne ( , , ; ; 19 January 1839 – 22 October 1906) was a French artist and Post-Impressionism, Post-Impressionist painter whose work laid the foundations of the transition from the 19th-century conception of artistic endeavour to a ...

and

John Marin John Marin (December 23, 1870 – October 2, 1953) was an early American modernist artist. He is known for his abstract landscapes and watercolors. Biography Marin was born in Rutherford, New Jersey. His mother died nine days after his birth, ...

were important early influences:

Major works

Paintings

In ''Mountains and Sea'', her first professionally exhibited work, Frankenthaler made use of the soak stain technique. The work itself was painted after a trip to Nova Scotia, which partly questions the extant of its non-representational status. Although ''Mountains and Sea'' is not a direct depiction of the Nova Scotia coastline, elements of the work suggest a kind of seascape or landscape, like the strokes of blue that join with areas of green. Much like ''Mountains and Sea'', Frankenthaler's ''Basque Landscape'' (1958) seems to refer to a very specific, external environment, but it is also abstract. The same can be said for ''Lorelei'' (1956), a work based on a boat ride Frankenthaler took down the Rhine. In ''Swan Lake #2'' (1961), Frankenthaler begins to explore a more illustrative handling of paint. The work depicts a large area of blue paint on the canvas, with breaks in the color that are left white. These negative spaces resemble birds, perhaps swans, sitting on a body of water. There is a very rectilinear brown square that encompasses the blue, balancing both the cool tones of the blue with the warmth of the brown, and the gestural handling of the paint with the strong linearity of the square. ''Eden'', from 1956, is an interior landscape, meaning it depicts the images of the artist's imagination. ''Eden'' tells the story of an abstract, interior world, idealized in ways that a landscape never could be. The work is almost entirely gestural, save for the incorporation of the number "100" two times in the center of the image. When asked about the process of creating this work, Frankenthaler stated that she began by painting the numbers, and that a sort of symbolic, idealized garden grew out of that.

Prints and woodcuts

Frankenthaler recognized a need to continually challenge herself to develop as an artist. For this reason, in 1961, she began to experiment with printmaking at the Universal Limited Art Editions (ULAE), a lithographic workshop in West Islip, Long Island. Frankenthaler collaborated with Tatyana Grosman in 1961 to create her first prints. In 1976, Frankenthaler began to work within the medium of woodcuts. She collaborated with

Kenneth E. Tyler Kenneth E. Tyler, Officer of the Order of Australia, AO (born December 13, 1931) is a master printmaker, publisher, arts educator and a prominent figure in the American post-war revival of fine art, limited edition printmaking. Tyler established ...

. The first piece they created together was ''Essence of Mulberry'' (1977), a woodcut that used eight different colors. ''Essence of Mulberry'' was inspired by two sources: the first was an exhibition of fifteenth century woodcuts that Frankenthaler saw on display at the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

, the second being a mulberry tree that grew outside of Tyler's studio. In 1995, the pair collaborated again, creating ''The Tales of Genji'', a series of six woodcut prints. To create woodcuts with a resonance similar to Frankenthaler's painterly style, she painted her plans onto the wood itself, making maquettes. ''The Tales of Genji'' took nearly three years to complete. Frankenthaler then went on to create ''Madame Butterfly'', a print that employed one hundred and two different colors and forty-six woodblocks. ''Madame Butterfly'' is seen as the ultimate translation of Frankenthaler's style into the medium of woodcuts, as it embodies her idea of creating an image that looks as if it happened all at once.

Awards and legacy

Frankenthaler received the

in 2001. She served on the National Council on the Arts of the

National Endowment for the Arts The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal ...

from 1985 to 1992. Her other awards include First Prize for Painting at the first Paris Biennial (1959);

Temple Gold Medal Joseph E. Temple Fund Gold Medal (defunct) was a prestigious art prize awarded by the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts most years from 1883 to 1968. A Temple Medal recognized the best oil painting by an American artist shown in PAFA's annual e ...

, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia (1968)
New York City Mayor's Award of Honor for Arts and Culture
(1986); and Distinguished Artist Award for Lifetime Achievement,

College Art Association The College Art Association of America (CAA) is the principal organization in the United States for professionals in the visual arts, from students to art historians to emeritus faculty. Founded in 1911, it "promotes these arts and their understa ...

(1994). In 1990, she was elected into the

National Academy of Design The National Academy of Design is an honorary association of American artists, founded in New York City in 1825 by Samuel Morse, Asher Durand, Thomas Cole, Martin E. Thompson, Charles Cushing Wright, Ithiel Town, and others "to promote the fin ...

as an Associate member, and became a full Academician in 1994. Frankenthaler did not consider herself a feminist: "For me, being a 'lady painter' was never an issue. I don't resent being a female painter. I don't exploit it. I paint." "Art was an extremely macho business," Anne Temkin, chief curator at the

, told NPR. "For me, there's a great deal of admiration just in the courage and the vision that she brought to what she did." However,

Mary Beth Edelson Mary Beth Edelson (born Mary Elizabeth Johnson) (6 February 1933 - 20 April 2021) was an American artist and pioneer of the feminist art movement, deemed one of the notable "first-generation feminist artists." Edelson was a printmaker, book art ...

's feminist piece ''Some Living American Women Artists / Last Supper'' (1972) appropriated

Leonardo da Vinci Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (15 April 14522 May 1519) was an Italian polymath of the High Renaissance who was active as a painter, Drawing, draughtsman, engineer, scientist, theorist, sculptor, and architect. While his fame initially res ...

’s ''The Last Supper'', with the heads of notable women artists including Frankenthaler collaged over the heads of Christ and his apostles. This image, addressing the role of religious and art historical iconography in the subordination of women, became "one of the most iconic images of the feminist art movement." In 1953,

and Morris Louis saw her ''Mountains and Sea'' which, Louis said later, was a "bridge between Pollock and what was possible." On the other hand, some critics called her work "merely beautiful." Grace Glueck's obituary in ''The New York Times'' summed up Frankenthaler's career:

Critics have not unanimously praised Ms. Frankenthaler's art. Some have seen it as thin in substance, uncontrolled in method, too sweet in color and too "poetic." But it has been far more apt to garner admirers like the critic Barbara Rose, who wrote in 1972 of Ms. Frankenthaler's gift for "the freedom, spontaneity, openness and complexity of an image, not exclusively of the studio or the mind, but explicitly and intimately tied to nature and human emotions.

Helen Frankenthaler Foundation

The New York-based Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, established and endowed by the artist during her lifetime, is dedicated to promoting greater public interest in and understanding of the visual arts. In 2021 the foundation created ''Frankenthaler Climate Initiative''. In July 2021, the foundation award the first round of grants totaling $5.1 million. The recipients included the Museo de Arte de Ponce, the Santa Rosa Indian Museum and Cultural Center, the

Studio Museum in Harlem The Studio Museum in Harlem is an American art museum devoted to the work of artists of African descent. The museum's galleries are currently closed in preparation for a building project that will replace the current building, located at 144 W ...

, and the Yale University Arts Center.

Exhibitions

Frankenthaler's first solo exhibition took place at the

Tibor de Nagy Gallery The Tibor de Nagy Gallery is an art gallery located on Rivington Street in the Lower East Side neighborhood of Manhattan. History Tibor de Nagy Gallery is among the earliest modern art galleries in New York City. The gallery was founded by Ti ...

, New York, in the fall of 1951. Her first major museum show, a retrospective of her 1950s work with a catalog by the critic and poet

Frank O'Hara Francis Russell "Frank" O'Hara (March 27, 1926 – July 25, 1966) was an American writer, poet, and art critic. A curator at the Museum of Modern Art, O'Hara became prominent in New York City's art world. O'Hara is regarded as a leading figure i ...

, a curator at the Museum of Modern Art, was at the Jewish Museum in 1960. Subsequent solo exhibitions include "Helen Frankenthaler,"

Whitney Museum of American Art The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is an art museum in the Meatpacking District and West Village neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1930 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875–1942), ...

, New York (1969; traveled to

Whitechapel Gallery The Whitechapel Gallery is a public art gallery in Whitechapel on the north side of Whitechapel High Street, in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. The original building, designed by Charles Harrison Townsend, opened in 1901 as one of the fir ...

, London; Orangerie Herrenhausen, Hanover; and Kongresshalle, Berlin), and "Helen Frankenthaler: a Painting Retrospective," The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth (1989–90; traveled to the

, New York;

Los Angeles County Museum of Art The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) is an art museum located on Wilshire Boulevard in the Miracle Mile, Los Angeles, California, Miracle Mile vicinity of Los Angeles. LACMA is on Museum Row, adjacent to the La Brea Tar Pits (George C. Pa ...

; and Detroit Institute of Arts). Miles McEnery Gallery, a New York-based contemporary art gallery which exhibited Color-Field and Abstract Expressionist paintings, showcased a range of her work in 2009 "Helen Frankenthaler," December 10, 2019 – January 23, 2010). On October 6, 2019, Frankenthaler was included in Sparkling Amazons: Abstract Expressionist Women of the 9th St. Show at the

Katonah Museum of Art The Katonah Museum of Art is a non-collecting institution geared towards visual arts, located in Katonah, New York, Katonah, New York (state), New York. It does not have a permanent collection, but holds temporary exhibitions. The museum was foun ...

in Westchester County, NY. which ran until January 26, 2020; *2019: "Postwar Women:alumnae of the Art Students League of New York 1945-1965", Phyllis Harriman Gallery, Art Students League of NY; curated by Will Corwin.; 2020: "9th Street Club", Gazelli Art House, London; curated by Will Corwin In 2021, a decade after her death the New Britain Museum of American Art mounted an exhibition of her works on paper from the final stages of her opus titled "Helen Frankenthaler; Late Works 1990 - 2003". The exhibition is on from February 11 until May 23, 2021.

Collections

* Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto *

Art Institute of Chicago The Art Institute of Chicago in Chicago's Grant Park, founded in 1879, is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the world. Recognized for its curatorial efforts and popularity among visitors, the museum hosts approximately 1.5 mill ...

* Centre Pompidou, Paris * The Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller Empire State Plaza Art Collection *

Kalamazoo Institute of Arts The Kalamazoo Institute of Arts (KIA) is a non-profit art museum and school in downtown Kalamazoo, Michigan, United States. History In 1924, members of the Kalamazoo Chapter of the American Federation of Arts established an art center "to further ...

, Kalamazoo, MI *

, New York *

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston The Museum of Fine Arts (often abbreviated as MFA Boston or MFA) is an art museum in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the 20th-largest art museum in the world, measured by public gallery area. It contains 8,161 paintings and more than 450,000 works ...

, New York *

National Gallery of Art The National Gallery of Art, and its attached Sculpture Garden, is a national art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, located on the National Mall, between 3rd and 9th Streets, at Constitution Avenue NW. Open to the public and free of char ...

, Washington, D.C. * National Gallery of Australia *

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) is a modern and contemporary art museum located in San Francisco, California. A nonprofit organization, SFMOMA holds an internationally recognized collection of modern and contemporary art, and was ...

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, often referred to as The Guggenheim, is an art museum at 1071 Fifth Avenue on the corner of East 89th Street on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It is the permanent home of a continuously exp ...

, New York *

Speed Art Museum The Speed Art Museum, originally known as the J.B. Speed Memorial Museum, now colloquially referred to as the Speed by locals, is the oldest and largest art museum in Kentucky. It was established in 1927 in Louisville, Kentucky on Third Street ...

, Louisville, KY *

Utah Museum of Fine Arts The Utah Museum of Fine Arts (UMFA) is the region's primary resource for culture and visual arts. It is located in the Marcia and John Price Museum Building in Salt Lake City, Utah on the University of Utah campus near Rice-Eccles Stadium. Works ...

, Salt Lake City, UT * University of Michigan Museum of Art, Ann Arbor, MI *

Walker Art Center The Walker Art Center is a multidisciplinary contemporary art center in the Lowry Hill neighborhood of Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. The Walker is one of the most-visited modern and contemporary art museums in the United States and, t ...

, Minneapolis *

, New York

National Endowment for the Arts

She was a presidential appointee to the National Council on the Arts, which advises the NEA's chairman. In ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' in 1989, she argued government funding for the arts was "not part of the democratic process" and was "beginning to spawn an art monster". According to the ''Los Angeles Times'', "Frankenthaler did take a highly public stance during the late 1980s "culture wars" that eventually led to deep budget cuts for the

and a ban on grants to individual artists that still persists. In a 1989 commentary for ''The New York Times'', she wrote that, while "censorship and government interference in the directions and standards of art are dangerous and not part of the democratic process," controversial grants to

Andres Serrano Andres Serrano (born August 15, 1950) is an American photographer and artist. His work, often considered transgressive art, includes photos of corpses and uses feces and bodily fluids. His '' Piss Christ'' (1987) is a red-tinged photograph of a ...

Robert Mapplethorpe Robert Michael Mapplethorpe (; November 4, 1946 – March 9, 1989) was an American photographer, best known for his black-and-white photographs. His work featured an array of subjects, including celebrity portraits, male and female nudes, self-p ...

, and others reflected a trend in which the NEA was supporting work "of increasingly dubious quality. Is the council, once a helping hand, now beginning to spawn an art monster? Do we lose art ... in the guise of endorsing experimentation?"

Death

Frankenthaler died on December 27, 2011, at the age of 83 in Darien, Connecticut, following a long and undisclosed illness."Helen Frankenthaler, Abstract Painter Who Shaped a Movement, Dies at 83" by GRACE GLUECK, ''The New York Times'', DEC. 27, 201

/ref>

References

Bibliography

* Alison Rowley,
Helen Frankenthaler: Painting History, Writing painting
'. I.B.Tauris Publishers, 2007. * Helen Frankenthaler in Interview with Henry Geldzahler, in
Theories and Documents of Contemporary Art
', edited by Kristine Stiles and Peter Selz, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996, pp. 28–30. * Helen Frankenthaler i
'Oral history Interview with Barbara Rose, 1968
for the Archives of American Art - Smithsonian Institution

External links

Helen Frankenthaler Foundation

Archives or American Art, Smithsonian Institute: Oral History Interview

Video: Helen Frankenthaler at Turner Contemporary, Margate by Laura Bushell on Artinfo 4 March 2014

* ttp://www.askart.com/AskART/artists/search/Search_Repeat.aspx?searchtype=IMAGES&artist=30037 Helen Frankenthaler Artwork Examples on AskART.
"Frankenthaler's New Way of Making Art", ''The Wall Street Journal'', November 8, 2008

Helen Frankenthaler in the National Gallery of Australia's Kenneth Tyler Collection

Helen Frankenthaler "Contemporary Experience Lecture" The Baltimore Museum of Art: Baltimore, Maryland, 1970
Accessed June 26, 2012
Helen Frankenthaler in the Utah Museum of Fine Arts Collection
{{DEFAULTSORT:Frankenthaler, Helen 1928 births 2011 deaths 20th-century American painters 20th-century American printmakers 20th-century American women artists Abstract expressionist artists Abstract painters American abstract artists American people of German-Jewish descent American women painters American women printmakers Art Students League of New York alumni Bennington College alumni Dalton School alumni Hunter College faculty Jewish American artists Jewish painters Members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters Painters from New York City People from the Upper East Side People from Provincetown, Massachusetts United States National Medal of Arts recipients Honorary Members of the Royal Academy 21st-century American Jews 20th-century American Jews 21st-century American painters 21st-century American printmakers 21st-century American women artists

Early life and education

Style and technique

Color field painting

Technique

Influences

Major works

Paintings

Prints and woodcuts

Awards and legacy

Helen Frankenthaler Foundation

Exhibitions

Collections

National Endowment for the Arts

Death

See also

References

Further reading

Bibliography

External links