Skywriting
View Similar Items
Helen FrankenthalerSkywriting1997
1997
About the Item
- Creator:Helen Frankenthaler (1928, American)
- Creation Year:1997
- Dimensions:Height: 30 in (76.2 cm)Width: 40 in (101.6 cm)
- Medium:
- Movement & Style:
- Period:
- Condition:
- Gallery Location:New York, NY
- Reference Number:1stDibs: LU4845736922
Helen Frankenthaler
Prolific and pioneering painter Helen Frankenthaler said it was “a combination of impatience, laziness and innovation” that drove her to thin her paints with turpentine so that they would seep into the fabric of an unprimed canvas. Her breakthrough in the early 1950s led the way for a spellbinding new style of painting that would come to be known as Color Field.
Although Color Field is often considered a strain of Abstract Expressionism, Frankenthaler’s work differed from the gestural “Action Painting” that typified the paintings of artists like Willem de Kooning and Lee Krasner. Her vast and immersive expanses of color created at a fearless scale captivated art critics and greatly influenced her peers including Morris Louis and Kenneth Noland.
Frankenthaler knew from an early age that she wanted to be a painter. The youngest daughter of a New York State Supreme Court justice, she grew up on Manhattan’s Park Avenue and as a child delighted in the little ways color and form revealed themselves, whether dribbling red nail polish in a sink full of water or drawing her steps from the Metropolitan Museum of Art to her family’s apartment. As a student at Bennington College, her rare vision was enriched by the mentorship of painter Paul Feeley, who gave her lessons in Cubism. After dabbling in art history at Columbia University, she rented a studio downtown and befriended rising New York art stars like Jackson Pollock and Robert Motherwell, whom she later married.
Characterized by “direct, exuberant gestures,” the Abstract Expressionist technique was all about gusto, and Frankenthaler had it in spades. One of the few women of this era to garner widespread critical acclaim, Frankenthaler had a significant impact on the mid-20th-century art world. She exhibited in the high-profile 1951 Ninth Street Show and, in 1957, she appeared in a Life magazine spread on women artists photographed by Gordon Parks. In 1960, the Jewish Museum held her first major museum show, a retrospective of her 1950s work. A 1969 solo exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art further introduced Frankenthaler to the broader art world.
While Frankenthaler remains best known for bold, expressive “soak-stain” paintings such as Mountains and Sea (1952), she worked across diverse media for decades, with forays into woodcutting, drawing and printmaking that also pushed boundaries. She also taught at Harvard, Yale and Princeton, fostering generations of artists. She died in 2011.
Find original Helen Frankenthaler art on 1stDibs.
- MidnightBy Helen FrankenthalerLocated in New York, NYDESCRIPTION aquatint and drypoint printed in colors, signed in pencil, dated, numbered 43/71 (total edition includes eight artist's proofs), on Magnani wove paper, with the blindstam...Category
1980s Post-War Abstract Prints
MaterialsDrypoint, Aquatint
Price Upon Request - Dark Gumball MachineBy Wayne ThiebaudLocated in New York, NYWayne Thiebaud Dark Gumball Machine, 1964/ 2017 Hard ground and soft ground etching 18h x 12w inCategory
1660s Post-War Still-life Prints
MaterialsEtching
Price Upon Request - High WindowBy Anthony CaroLocated in New York, NYCast and Welded BronzeCategory
1970s Post-War Abstract Sculptures
MaterialsBronze
Price Upon Request - LibertyBy Dan ChristensenLocated in New York, NYAcrylic on CanvasCategory
1980s Post-War Abstract Paintings
MaterialsAcrylic
Price Upon Request - UntitledBy Friedel DzubasLocated in New York, NYFriedel Dzubas untitled, 1974 acrylic on canvas 4h x 18w inCategory
1970s Post-War Abstract Paintings
MaterialsAcrylic
Price Upon Request - UpstreamBy Friedel DzubasLocated in New York, NYFriedel Dzubas Upstream, 1973 acrylic on canvas 40h x 40w inCategory
1970s Post-War Abstract Paintings
MaterialsAcrylic
Price Upon Request
- Formulation: Articulation 1981.524.1.1By Josef AlbersLocated in Palm Desert, CAA print by Josef Albers. "Formulation: Articulation 1981.524.1.1" is a screen print, executed in shades of blue and depicting abstracted, folded papers, by Post War artist Josef Albe...Category
1970s Post-War Abstract Prints
MaterialsScreen
- Formulation: Articulation (Diptych)By Josef AlbersLocated in Palm Desert, CAAn abstract screen print diptych by Post War artist Josef Albers. This work is two prints framed together.Category
1970s Post-War Abstract Prints
MaterialsScreen
- UntitledBy Josef AlbersLocated in Palm Desert, CAAn abstract screen print by Post War artist Josef Albers. Signed lower right, "Albers '72". Editioned lower left, "LC 134/144".Category
1970s Post-War Abstract Prints
MaterialsScreen
- Prime Pump from ROCI USABy Robert RauschenbergLocated in Palm Desert, CAA print by Robert Rauschenberg. "Prime Pump from ROCI USA" is a color screenprint on paper and Lexan print from the Wax Fire Works Series. "Prime Pump from ...Category
1990s Post-War Abstract Prints
MaterialsPaper, Screen
- Ten Works X Ten PaintersBy George Earl OrtmanLocated in Palm Desert, CAAn abstract screen print executed in bright yellow & chartreuse by Post War artist George Ortman.Category
1960s Post-War Abstract Prints
MaterialsScreen
- Untitled from Formulation: ArticulationBy Josef AlbersLocated in Palm Desert, CAA print by Josef Albers. "Formulation: Articulation" is a geometric abstract screenprint in a white and dark brown palette by Post War artist Josef Albers. The artwork is from an edi...Category
Mid-20th Century Post-War Abstract Prints
MaterialsScreen