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Helen Frankenthaler

  • About
  • Works in the Kenneth E. Tyler Collection
  • Further Reading

Black and white photograph of Helen Frankenthaler

Helen Frankenthaler in the studio at Tyler Graphics Ltd., Bedford Village, New York, 1977
Gift of Kenneth Tyler 2002
Photographer: Lindsay Green

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


  • Helen Frankenthaler

    Essence mulberry
    1977

  • Helen Frankenthaler

    Gateway
    1988

  • Helen Frankenthaler

    All about blue
    1994

  • Helen Frankenthaler

    Reflections XII
    1993

  • Helen Frankenthaler

    Tales of Genji I
    1998

  • Helen Frankenthaler

    Madame Butterfly
    2000

Browse all works by Helen Frankenthaler

Further Reading


EXHIBITIONS

  • Lichtenstein to Warhol, 2019–20
  • American Masters: 1940-1980, 2018
  • Against the Grain: The woodcuts of Helen Frankenthaler, 2004–05
  • The Big Americans, 2002–03
  • Back to the future: international prints 1985–1991, 14 September – 15 December 1991
  • Ken Tyler: printer extraordinary, 6 June – 13 October 1985
  • Out of the book and on to the wall: the relief print, part II, September – October 1984

VIDEO

  • Frankenthaler

NATIONAL GALLERY PUBLICATIONS

  • Lichtenstein to Warhol: The Kenneth Tyler Collection, Jane Kinsman, exhibition catalogue, 2019
  • Workshop: The Kenneth Tyler Collection, Jane Kinsman (ed.), 2015
  • Against the grain: the woodcuts of Helen Frankenthaler, 2005
  • The Art of Collaboration: The Big Americans, Jane Kinsman, exhibition catalogue, 2002
  • Ken Tyler Printer Extraordinary, 1985

TYLER GRAPHICS PUBLICATIONS

  • Tales of Genji, 1998
  • This Is Not A Book, 1997
  • Valentine For Mr. Wonderful, 1996
  • Reflections, 1995
  • Gateway, 1988
  • Prints: 1985-1987
  • Experimental Impressions, 1978

RELATED LINKS

  • Helen Frankenthaler Foundation

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Anja Loughhead explores Helen Frankenthaler's relationship with First Generation abstractionists, as well as Japanese art and philosophy.

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The Kenneth Tyler Collection team discuss the fascinating artists’ books of Helen Frankenthaler, John Altoon, and Robert Motherwell

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International Women’s Day: celebrating female artists

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On the eve of International Women’s Day, we celebrate the achievements of the women artists represented in the Kenneth E. Tyler collection.

Read Time 9 minutes

Yuuma, Gurruburri

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