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.
Hand signed letter from Helen Frankenthaler framed + Arkatov's signed portrait
By Helen Frankenthaler
Located in New York, NY
This work features a photographic portrait of Helen Frankenthaler, taken by renowned musician and photographer Jim Arkatov, founder of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchester, and author o...
Ink, Photographic Paper, Rag Paper
$1,125Sale Price|20% Off
H 47.64 in W 39.38 in D 0.2 in
Lily in Charcoal No.2 - abstract expressionism photography edition of 10
By Ugne Pouwell
Located in London, GB
'Lily in Charcoal No.2' 2023 From raw energy to sublime. 'Lily in Charcoal No.2' is an expression piece combining an abstract charcoal drawing with a live lily emerging from a gash....
Paper, Photographic Film, Charcoal, Archival Ink, Archival Paper
$684Sale Price|20% Off
H 29.53 in W 23.63 in D 0.2 in
'Lily in Charcoal no.3' abstract expressionism photography edition of 10
By Ugne Pouwell
Located in London, GB
'Lily in Charcoal no.3' 2023 From raw energy to sublime. 'Lily in Charcoal No.3' is an expression piece combining an abstract charcoal drawing with a live lily emerging from a gash....
Paper, Photographic Film, Charcoal, Archival Ink, Archival Paper
$684Sale Price|20% Off
H 29.53 in W 23.63 in D 0.2 in
'Lily in Charcoal' abstract expressionism photography edition of 10
By Ugne Pouwell
Located in London, GB
'Lily in Charcoal' 2023 From raw energy to sublime. 'Lily in Charcoal' is an expression piece combining an abstract charcoal drawing with a live lily...
Paper, Photographic Film, Charcoal, Archival Ink, Archival Paper
$1,125Sale Price|20% Off
H 49.22 in W 39.38 in D 0.2 in
'Lily in Charcoal no.3' abstract expressionism photography edition of 10
By Ugne Pouwell
Located in London, GB
'Lily in Charcoal no.3' 2023 From raw energy to sublime. 'Lily in Charcoal No.3' is an expression piece combining an abstract charcoal drawing with a live lily emerging from a gash....
Paper, Photographic Film, Charcoal, Archival Ink, Archival Paper
$684Sale Price|20% Off
H 29.53 in W 23.63 in D 0.2 in
'Lily in Charcoal' abstract expressionism photography edition of 10
By Ugne Pouwell
Located in London, GB
'Lily in Charcoal' 2023 From raw energy to sublime. 'Lily in Charcoal' is an expression piece combining an abstract charcoal drawing with a live lily emerging from a gash. The charc...
Paper, Photographic Film, Charcoal, Archival Ink, Archival Paper
$5,500
H 44.5 in W 50 in
Ellen Hackl Fagan, Seeking the Sound of Cobalt Blue_Delft, 2015, Rag Paper
By Ellen Hackl Fagan
Located in Darien, CT
Ellen Hackl Fagan is an interdisciplinary abstract painter who uses synaesthesia, digital media and interactive performance as tools for developing a corresponding language between color and sound in her work. This year she focused in on the core concept in her abstract work and began creating a small series of works on paper titled “Seeking the Sound of Cobalt Blue.” This series has evolved into floor to wall installations of blue paintings on paper and on the floor that explore the nature of printmaking processes, texture and surface. Ellen Hackl Fagan is the inventor of The Reverse Color Organ and the ColorSoundGrammar Game, two projects that enable viewers to interact aurally with color. In collaboration with cognitive scientist Michael Cole...
Archival Ink, Acrylic, Rag Paper, Pigment
$1,862
H 49.22 in W 39.38 in D 0.2 in
'Lily in Charcoal' abstract expressionism photography edition 3 of 10
By Ugne Pouwell
Located in London, GB
'Lily in Charcoal' 2023 From raw energy to sublime. 'Lily in Charcoal' is an expression piece combining an abstract charcoal drawing with a live lily emerging from a gash. The charc...
Paper, Photographic Film, Charcoal, Archival Ink, Archival Paper
$1,690
H 25 in W 25 in
"Rabbit Disguised as a Tomato Basil Potato Chip, " Mixed Media by David Barnett
By David Barnett
Located in Milwaukee, WI
"Rabbit disguised as a Tomato Basil Potato Chip" is an original photograph embellished with ink and watercolor by David Barnett, signed and dated in the lo...
Ink, Watercolor, Photographic Paper
$1,890
H 22.625 in W 19.875 in
"Bamboo & Lobster, " Original Surreal Ink & Watercolor signed by David Barnett
By David Barnett
Located in Milwaukee, WI
"Bamboo & Lobster" is a reworking of a work from fifty-two years prior, "Bamboo, Lobster, & Cherries." It is an an original surrealist ink and watercolor drawing by David Barnett, si...
Ink, Watercolor, Rag Paper
$684Sale Price|20% Off
H 29.53 in W 23.63 in D 0.2 in
'Lily in Charcoal' abstract expressionism photography edition of 10
By Ugne Pouwell
Located in London, GB
'Lily in Charcoal' 2023 From raw energy to sublime. 'Lily in Charcoal' is an expression piece combining an abstract charcoal drawing with a live lily emerging from a gash. The charc...
Paper, Photographic Film, Charcoal, Archival Ink, Archival Paper
$800
H 8 in W 8 in D 1.5 in
Ellen Hackl Fagan, Doremi_Musicians-L, 2012, ink, gouache, rag paper
By Ellen Hackl Fagan
Located in Darien, CT
ColorSoundGrammar Ellen Hackl Fagan There is a long history of sound/color synaesthesia work, from Isaac Newton’s color organ to Alexander Scriabin’s “Prometheus,” but not much wor...
Ink, Gouache, Rag Paper
$800
H 8 in W 8 in D 1.5 in
Ellen Hackl Fagan, Doremi_Musicians-J, 2012, Ink, Gouache, Rag Paper
By Ellen Hackl Fagan
Located in Darien, CT
ColorSoundGrammar Ellen Hackl Fagan There is a long history of sound/color synaesthesia work, from Isaac Newton’s color organ to Alexander Scriabin’s “Prometheus,” but not much ...
Ink, Gouache, Rag Paper