Helen Frankenthaler

Helen Frankenthaler was born in New York in 1928. She studied at The Dalton School, New York under the Mexican muralist Rufino Tamayo and at Bennington College, Vermont, under the American cubist Paul Feeley. In 1950 Frankenthaler met the critic Clement Greenberg and began mixing with the artists of the New York School, including Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning. As a much younger artist, she emerged as one of the ‘second generation’ of Abstract Expressionists.

At the age of 23, Frankenthaler found her individual style with the large oil painting Mountains and sea. Frankenthaler placed the canvas on the floor, thinned her oil paint with turpentine and painted with the diluted wash in a technique she called ‘soak-stain’. The ‘soak-stain’ technique was a radical departure from her earlier work and had an immediate impact on many artists, including Morris Louis and Kenneth Noland who successfully adopted the technique for their Color Field paintings.

Frankenthaler describes her method of painting as ‘a fighting, loving dialogue with this piece of material. You force something on it and it gives you an answer back … until you know that this is right’. As we can see in her work, her finely tuned skills allow for both control and spontaneity.

Jaklyn Babington

Works in the Kenneth E. Tyler Collection

Browse all works by Helen Frankenthaler

Works in the Kenneth E. Tyler Collection

Helen Frankenthaler Essence mulberry 1977

Helen Frankenthaler, Tyler Graphics Ltd Mount Kisco New York Gateway 1988

Helen Frankenthaler, Tyler Graphics Ltd Mount Kisco New York All about blue 1994

Helen Frankenthaler Reflections XII 1993

Helen Frankenthaler Tales of Genji I 1998

Helen Frankenthaler, Tyler Graphics Ltd Mount Kisco New York Madame Butterfly 2000

Further Reading

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Unknown artist 'Shield' pre 1940

Anne O’Hehir on Queer women artists in the Collection Study Room Women artists in focus

Artist Archives with Simon Underschultz

Artists' Artists: Julie Rrap

Masami Teraoka & ukiyo-e printmaking

Page turners: artists’ books

Artists' Artists: Danie Mellor

Frankenthaler

Helen Frankenthaler
Essence mulberry
1977

Helen Frankenthaler, Tyler Graphics Ltd Mount Kisco New York
Gateway
1988

Helen Frankenthaler, Tyler Graphics Ltd Mount Kisco New York
All about blue
1994

Helen Frankenthaler
Reflections XII
1993

Helen Frankenthaler
Tales of Genji I
1998

Helen Frankenthaler, Tyler Graphics Ltd Mount Kisco New York
Madame Butterfly
2000

Anne O’Hehir on Queer women artists in the Collection Study Room
Women artists in focus