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Helen Frankenthaler Landscape Prints

While Helen Frankenthaler remains best known for bold, expressive “soak-stain” paintings such as Mountains and Sea (1952), she has been recognized for her innovative prints, too. The Abstract Expressionist artist worked across diverse media for decades, with forays into woodcutting, drawing and printmaking that also pushed boundaries. 

In the early 1950s, when Frankenthaler first poured turpentine-thinned paint onto raw canvas, the lifelong New Yorker blazed a trail that many of her male contemporaries would follow. Her process, which came to be known as Color Field painting, was described as “the bridge between Pollock and what is possible” by the artist Morris Louis, an early adopter of the technique. But Frankenthaler also experimented widely with printmaking. 

Off White Square, a highlight of “As in Nature,” a 2017 solo exhibition of Frankenthaler’s works at Clark Art Institute, in Massachusetts, is a dramatic picture from 1973 that’s more than 21 feet long. The smallest print in “No Rules” — a series that brings together 17 of the roughly 25 woodcut prints that the artist executed between 1973 and 2009 — measures 20 by 24 inches. 

This pair of works reveals Frankenthaler’s innate gift for handling different scales, making paintings and works on paper that are compelling whether they are super-sized or intimate. In some ways, this was the magic ingredient in the work of this artist, who was one of the few women to garner the critical acclaim given to such male Ab-Ex counterparts as Willem de Kooning and Robert Motherwell.

In the 1970s, Tatyana Grosman, of Universal Limited Art Editions, invited Frankenthaler, then in her mid-40s, to make her first woodcut. The artist approached the time-consuming process unconventionally. Her mantra became “Ignore the rules.”

Rethinking the properties of wood, paper and even the inks, Frankenthaler introduced qualities of transparency that were new to the printmaking medium. Her colors became diaphanous layers. The six prints that comprise “Tales of Genji” (1998) and “Madame Butterfly” (2000) are remarkable examples of this feat.

Early on, Frankenthaler did not carve into the wood. Instead, she applied ink to the ends of multiple blocks. Because she did not want negative spaces to appear between her colors, each individual element was printed separately rather than being joined to the others in a jigsaw-like configuration. The artist also incorporated the wood grain as a formal quality, enlivening its natural character by roughing it up a bit with all sorts of scrapers, including sandpaper, dental tools and even a cheese scraper.

Eventually, Frankenthaler began making her own unique paper pulp for her prints. As for her colors, when she was unhappy with the tones of a few in early test prints, she began laying down a layer of white ink to enliven the pigments that would be applied next.

Frankenthaler made four woodcuts during the 1970s and just two more during the ’80s. The resulting oeuvre was worth the wait. Referencing Japan and Japanese woodblock prints, which grew out of 17th-century developments in printing and book publishing, Frankenthaler called her first woodcut East and Beyond. By the time she made her last woodcut, in 2009, she’d created off-kilter compositions, astonishing color arrangements and meandering lines evocative of her paintings.

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Artist: Helen Frankenthaler
A Paintings Retrospective: vintage LACMA Museum poster depicting her 1963 work
By Helen Frankenthaler
Located in New York, NY
Helen Frankenthaler A Paintings Retrospective: vintage LACMA Museum poster, 1990 Offset lithograph museum poster (Unsigned & Unnumbered) Limited Edition - though exact number produced unknown 37 × 25 inches Unframed This was printed in the artists lifetime - making it more collectible - on the occasion of the exhibition, "Helen Frankenthaler: A Paintings Retrospective from February to April, 1990 at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) Print is published by Editions Limited Galleries, San Francisco for Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), LA, CA The work depicted is Helen Frankenthaler, The Bay, 1963, acrylic on canvas, Detroit Institute of Arts, Michigan (Incidentally, this beautiful work is featured on the cover of the book Water and Art' by David Clarke.) Accompanied by gallery issued Certificate of Guarantee “What concerns me when I work is not whether a picture is a landscape… or whether somebody will see a sunset in it. What concerns me is, did I make a beautiful picture?” - - Helen Frankenthaler This is Frankenthaler's first silkscreen, produced for the portfolio New York Ten, which includes works by other New York-based artists at the time such as Roy Lichtenstein, Jim Dine, Tom Wesselmann and Claes Oldenburg. (She created her first lithograph in 1961) Other examples of this edition are found in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, MOCA Chicago, the Metropolitan Museum, the Philadelphia Museum, the Art Institute of Chicago, and numerous regional museums and institutions in the United States and worldwide. Helen Frankenthaler, A Brief Biography Helen Frankenthaler (1928-2011), whose career spanned six decades, has long been recognized as one of the great American artists of the twentieth century. She was eminent among the second generation of postwar American abstract painters and is widely credited for playing a pivotal role in the transition from Abstract Expressionism to Color Field painting. Through her invention of the soak-stain technique, she expanded the possibilities of abstract painting, while at times referencing figuration and landscape in unique ways. She produced a body of work whose impact on contemporary art has been profound and continues to grow. Frankenthaler was born on December 12, 1928, and raised in New York City. She attended the Dalton School, where she received her earliest art instruction from Rufino Tamayo. In 1949 she graduated from Bennington College, Vermont, where she was a student of Paul Feeley. She later studied briefly with Hans Hofmann. Frankenthaler’s professional exhibition career began in 1950, when Adolph Gottlieb selected her painting Beach (1950) for inclusion in the exhibition titled Fifteen Unknowns: Selected by Artists of the Kootz Gallery. Her first solo exhibition was presented in 1951, at New York’s Tibor de Nagy Gallery, and that year she was also included in the landmark exhibition 9th St. Exhibition of Paintings and Sculpture. In 1952 Frankenthaler created Mountains and Sea, a breakthrough painting of American abstraction for which she poured thinned paint directly onto raw, unprimed canvas laid on the studio floor, working from all sides to create floating fields of translucent color. Mountains and Sea was immediately influential for the artists who formed the Color Field school of painting, notable among them Morris Louis and Kenneth Noland. As early as 1959, Frankenthaler began to be a regular presence in major international exhibitions. She won first prize at the Premiere Biennale de Paris that year, and in 1966 she represented the United States in the 33rd Venice Biennale, alongside Ellsworth Kelly, Roy Lichtenstein, and Jules Olitski. She had her first major museum exhibition in 1960, at New York’s Jewish Museum, and her second, in 1969, at the Whitney Museum of American Art, followed by an international tour. Frankenthaler experimented tirelessly throughout her long career. In addition to producing unique paintings on canvas and paper, she worked in a wide range of media, including ceramics, sculpture, tapestry, and especially printmaking. Hers was a significant voice in the mid-century “print renaissance” among American abstract painters, and she is particularly renowned for her woodcuts. She continued working productively through the opening years of this century. Frankenthaler’s distinguished, prolific career has been the subject of numerous monographic museum exhibitions. The Jewish Museum and Whitney Museum shows were succeeded by a major retrospective initiated by the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth that traveled to The Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the Detroit Institute of Arts, MI (1989); and those devoted to works on paper and prints organized by the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. (1993), among others. Select recent important exhibitions have included Painted on 21st Street: Helen Frankenthaler from 1950 to 1959 (Gagosian, NY, 2013); Making Painting: Helen Frankenthaler and JMW Turner (Turner Contemporary, Margate, UK, 2014); Giving Up One’s Mark: Helen Frankenthaler in the 1960s and 1970s (Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY, 2014–15); Pretty Raw: After and Around Helen Frankenthaler (Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA, 2015); As in Nature: Helen Frankenthaler, Paintings and No Rules: Helen Frankenthaler Woodcuts...
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1990s Abstract Expressionist Helen Frankenthaler Landscape Prints

Materials

Lithograph, Offset

The Darker Palette print, Hand signed twice and inscribed by Helen Frankenthaler
By Helen Frankenthaler
Located in New York, NY
Helen Frankenthaler Frankenthaler: The Darker Palette (Hand signed twice and inscribed), 1998 Offset Lithograph print 42 × 35 in hand signed "Frankenthaler" lower left; inscribed and...
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1990s Abstract Expressionist Helen Frankenthaler Landscape Prints

Materials

Offset, Permanent Marker, Lithograph

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Mary Mary 1991, Lincoln Center Honorary Silkscreen
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Helen Frankenthaler landscape prints for sale on 1stDibs.

Find a wide variety of authentic Helen Frankenthaler landscape prints available for sale on 1stDibs.
Questions About Helen Frankenthaler Landscape Prints
  • 1stDibs ExpertMarch 22, 2022
    Helen Frankenthaler was known for her Abstract-expressionist art. She became well known for her 1952 painting Mountains and Sea. It was the first time she employed the soak-stain painting technique that would become a hallmark of her later work. You'll find a variety of Helen Frankenthaler art on 1stDibs.
  • 1stDibs ExpertApril 5, 2022
    Helen Frankenthaler mostly did paintings. The American artist's work reflects the characteristics of Abstract Expressionism. Mountains and Sea, Snow Pines, Aerie and Grey Fireworks are among her most famous paintings. You can find a range of Helen Frankenthaler art on 1stDibs.
  • 1stDibs ExpertFebruary 1, 2024
    You can see Helen Frankenthaler paintings in a few places. Her works are part of the permanent collections at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in California and the Chrysler Museum of Art in Norfolk, Virginia. In addition, the artist's paintings are often part of exhibitions around the world. Check the official website of the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation for upcoming dates and locations. On 1stDibs, find a collection of Helen Frankenthaler art.
  • 1stDibs ExpertApril 5, 2022
    Helen Frankenthaler is an American abstract expressionist painter that was known for inventing a technique referred to as soak-stain. Soak staining is a process using thinned paint and raw canvas, similar to painting fabric. Shop a range of Helen Frankenthaler work on 1stDibs.

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