Helen Frankenthaler

Helen Frankenthaler was born on December 12, 1928, in New York City.[https://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/217234/Helen-Frankenthaler "Helen Frankenthaler"], Britannica, Retrieved 24 December 2014. Her father was Alfred Frankenthaler, a New York State Supreme Court judge. Her mother, Martha (Lowenstein), had emigrated with her family from Germany to the United States as an infant.{{cite news|author=Glueck, Grace|title=Helen Frankenthaler, Abstract Painter Who Shaped a Movement, Dies at 83|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/28/arts/helen-frankenthaler-abstract-painter-dies-at-83.html|date=December 27, 2011|work=The New York Times|access-date=December 27, 2011}} Helen's two sisters, Marjorie and Gloria, were six and five years older, respectively. Growing up on Manhattan's Upper East Side, Frankenthaler absorbed the privileged background of a cultured and progressive Jewish intellectual family that encouraged all three daughters to prepare themselves for professional careers. Her nephew is the artist/photographer Clifford Ross.[https://www.nytimes.com/1998/06/23/arts/gloria-f-ross-tapestry-designer-dies-at-74.html Grace Glueck, NY Times, 1998] Retrieved August 17, 2010

Frankenthaler studied at the Dalton School under muralist Rufino Tamayo and also at Bennington College in Vermont. While at Bennington, Frankenthaler studied under the direction of Paul Feeley, who is credited with helping her understand pictorial composition, as well as influencing her early cubist-derived style.{{cite journal|last1=Babington|first1=Jacklyn|title=Against the grain: the woodcuts of Helen Frankenthaler|journal=Artonview|date=2005|volume=44|pages=22–27}} Upon her graduation in 1949, she studied privately with Australian-born painter Wallace Harrison,{{cite web|author=Wilkin, Karen|title=Frankenthaler at the Guggenheim|url=http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/Frankenthaler-at-the-Guggenheim-3093|work=The New Criterion|access-date=October 23, 2015}} and with Hans Hofmann in 1950.{{cite book|last1=Tolley-Stokes|first1=Rebecca|title=Frankenthaler, Helen, 1928-2011 |publisher=Encyclopedia of the Sixties: A Decade of Culture and Counterculture}} She met Clement Greenberg in 1950 and had a five-year relationship with him. She married the painter Robert Motherwell in 1958; the couple divorced in 1971.{{cite web|author=Belz, Carl|title=Helen Frankenthaler|url=http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/frankenthaler-helen|work=Jewish Women's Archive|access-date=December 27, 2011}} Both born of wealthy parents, they were known as "the golden couple" and for their lavish entertaining. She gained two stepdaughters from him, Jeannie Motherwell and Lise Motherwell. Jeannie Motherwell studied painting at Bard College and the Art Students League in New York and had several exhibits.

In 1994, Frankenthaler married Stephen M. DuBrul, Jr., an investment banker who served the Gerald Ford administration.

Active as a painter for nearly six decades, Frankenthaler passed through many phases and stylistic shifts.{{cite journal|last1=Carmean|first1=E.A. Jr.|title=On Five Paintings by Helen Frankenthaler|journal=Art International|date=1978|volume=22|pages=28–32}} Initially associated with abstract expressionism[http://www.tate.org.uk/servlet/ArtistWorks?cgroupid=999999961&artistid=1114&page=1&sole=y&collab=y&attr=y&sort=default&tabview=bio Tate bio] Retrieved August 17, 2010 because of her focus on forms latent in nature, Frankenthaler is identified with the use of fluid shapes, abstract masses, and lyrical gestures.{{cite web | first1=Christopher | last1=Brookeman | url=http://www.oxfordartonline.com | title=Frankenthaler, Helen | publisher=Oxford University Press | website=Oxford Art Online}}{{cite book|last1=Chadwick|first1=Whitney|title=Women, Art, and Society|date=2007|publisher=Thames & Hudson|location=New York|isbn=978-0-500-20393-4|page=328|edition=Fourth}} She made use of large formats on which she painted, generally, simplified abstract compositions.{{cite web | first1=David | last1=Anfam | url=http://www.oxfordartonline.com | title=Colour field painting | publisher=Oxford University Press | website=Oxford Art Online}} Her style is notable in its emphasis on spontaneity, as Frankenthaler herself stated, "A really good picture looks as if it's happened at once."

Frankenthaler often painted onto unprimed canvas with oil paints that she heavily diluted with turpentine, a technique that she named "soak stain". This allowed for the colors to soak directly into the canvas, creating a liquefied, translucent effect that strongly resembled watercolor. Soak stain was also said to be the ultimate fusing of image and canvas, drawing attention to the flatness of the painting itself. The major disadvantage of this method, however, is that the oil in the paints will eventually cause the canvas to discolor and rot away.Carmean, E.A. Helen Frankenthaler A Paintings Retrospective, Exhibition Catalog, p.12, Harry N. Abrams in conjunction with The Museum of Modern Art, Fort Worth, {{ISBN|0-8109-1179-5}}[https://www.jstor.org/pss/4381078 John Elderfield, After a Breakthrough on the 1950s paintings of Helen Frankenthaler] Retrieved August 17, 2010 The technique was adopted by other artists, notably Morris Louis (1912–1962) and Kenneth Noland (1924–2010), and launched the second generation of the color field school of painting.Fenton, Terry. "[http://www.sharecom.ca/fenton/louis.html Morris Louis]". sharecom.ca. Retrieved December 8, 2008 Frankenthaler often worked by laying her canvas out on the floor, a technique inspired by Jackson Pollock.

Frankenthaler preferred to paint in privacy. If assistants were present, she preferred them to be inconspicuous when not needed.{{cite news | url=https://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/27/arts/art-architecture-helen-frankenthaler-back-to-the-future.html?scp=1&sq=Helen%20Frankenthaler,%20Back%20to%20the%20Future%20&st=cse&pagewanted=1 | title=Helen Frankenthaler, Back to the Future|work=The New York Times|date=April 27, 2003|access-date=December 5, 2013|last=Loos|first=Ted}}

One of her most important influences was Clement Greenberg (1909–1994), an art and literary critic with whom she had a personal friendship and who included her in the Post-Painterly Abstraction exhibition that he curated in 1964.[http://www.sharecom.ca/greenberg/ppacatalog.html list of artists in the exhibition] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221002170305/http://www.sharecom.ca/greenberg/ppacatalog.html |date=2022-10-02 }} Retrieved August 17, 2010 Through Greenberg she was introduced to the New York art scene. Under his guidance she spent the summer of 1950 studying with Hans Hofmann (1880–1966), catalyst of the Abstract Expressionist movement.

The first Jackson Pollock show Frankenthaler saw was at the Betty Parsons Gallery in 1950. She had this to say about seeing Pollock's paintings Autumn Rhythm, Number 30, 1950 (1950), Number One,1950 (Lavender Mist) (1950):

It was all there. I wanted to live in this land. I had to live there, and master the language.

Some of her thoughts on painting:

{{blockquote|A really good picture looks as if it's happened at once. It's an immediate image. For my own work, when a picture looks labored and overworked, and you can read in it—well, she did this and then she did that, and then she did that—there is something in it that has not got to do with beautiful art to me. And I usually throw these out, though I think very often it takes ten of those over-labored efforts to produce one really beautiful wrist motion that is synchronized with your head and heart, and you have it, and therefore it looks as if it were born in a minute.|In Barbara Rose, Frankenthaler (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc. 1975, p. 85)}}

John Elderfield wrote that the watercolors of Paul Cézanne and John Marin were important early influences:{{blockquote|Watercolor... expands the brightness and flatness of plein-air painting because it visibly reveals these qualities in the whiteness of its support, which always makes its presence felt due to the insubstantiality of its covering. Marin and Cézanne were important to Frankenthaler not only for their watercolors or for the lightness of their work, but, more importantly, because both of them had liberated their oil paintings by treating them like watercolors, which was what Frankenthaler began to do... In Cézanne's case this transposition of techniques also encouraged him to leave uncovered areas of white canvas between patches of thinned-down oil. This was especially interesting to Frankenthaler too.{{cite book|author=Alison Rowley|title=Helen Frankenthaler: Painting History, Writing Painting|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=x8zJWknFqrYC|year=2007|publisher=I.B.Tauris|isbn=978-1-84511-518-0|page=32}}}}

File:Frankenthaler Helen Mountains and Sea 1952.jpg 1952 Oil and charcoal on unsized, unprimed canvas, {{cvt|86+3/8|x|117+1/4|in|cm}} on extended loan to the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC]]Frankenthaler's official artistic career as a painter was launched in 1952 with the exhibition of Mountains and Sea.[https://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/394985/Mountains-and-Sea Britannica] Retrieved August 17, 2010 Throughout the 1950s, her works tended to be centered compositions. In 1957, Frankenthaler began to experiment with linear shapes and more organic, sun-like, rounded forms.

In the 1960s, her style shifted towards the exploration of symmetrical paintings, as she began to place strips of colors near the edges of her paintings. Her style grew to be more simplified. She began to make use of single stains and blots of solid color against white backgrounds, often in the form of geometric shapes. In 1960, the term color field painting was used to describe the work of Frankenthaler.[https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=87871332 'Color Field' Artists Found a Different Way] Retrieved 3 August 2010 In general, this term refers to the application of large areas, or fields, of color to the canvas. This style was characterized by the use of hues that were similar in tone or intensity, as well as large formats and simplified compositions, all of which are qualities descriptive of Frankenthaler's work from the 1960s onward. The color field artists differed from abstract expressionists in their attempted erasure of emotional, mythic, and religious content."[http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/c/colour-field-painting Colour Field Painting]". Tate. Retrieved August 17, 2010 Beginning in 1963, Frankenthaler began to use acrylic paints rather than oil paints because they allowed for both opacity and sharpness when put on the canvas.{{r|Credo}}

By the 1970s, she had done away with the soak stain technique entirely, preferring thicker paint that allowed her to employ bright colors almost reminiscent of Fauvism. Throughout the 1970s, Frankenthaler explored the joining of areas of the canvas through the use of modulated hues, and experimented with large, abstract forms.

Her work in the 1980s was characterized as much calmer, with its use of muted colors and relaxed brushwork. "Once one's true talent begins to emerge, one is freer in a way but less free in another way, since one is a captive of this necessity and deep urge".{{Cite journal|last=Dorofeyeva|first=L. V.|date=November 1975|title=Obtaining of measles virus haemagglutinin from strain L-16 grown in primary cell cultures|journal=Acta Virologica|volume=19|issue=6|pages=497|issn=0001-723X|pmid=1998}}

While she is best known for her large-scale canvases, her works on paper constitute a significant and dynamic aspect of her oeuvre.{{r|elderfield1}}{{r|elderfield2}} These works, spanning drawings, watercolors, gouaches, and prints, reveal her innovative approach to color, form, and medium, offering intimate insights into her creative process.{{r|elderfield1}}{{r|elderfield2}} Frankenthaler's works on paper are not mere preparatory studies but stand as fully realized expressions of her artistic vision, showcasing her mastery of fluidity, transparency, and improvisation.{{r|wilkins}}{{r|clearwater}}

Frankenthaler's engagement with paper began in her youth and continued through her studies at Bennington College. Her early drawings from the 1940s, often executed in charcoal, ink, or pastel, display a lyrical abstraction with fluid lines and organic forms. These works reflect her exploration of automatism and her interest in artists like Arshile Gorky and Joan Miró.{{r|wilkins}}{{r|clearwater}}

By the 1950s, Frankenthaler began experimenting with watercolor and gouache, mediums that allowed her to explore the translucency and spontaneity that would define her mature style. Her invention of the soak-stain technique in 1952 had a profound impact on her works on paper. She adapted this method to paper, pouring diluted paint onto unprimed surfaces, allowing colors to bleed and merge.{{r|wilkins}}{{r|clearwater}}{{r|rose}}

During the 1960s, Frankenthaler's works on paper became increasingly ambitious, paralleling the scale and complexity of her canvases. She embraced a variety of techniques, including acrylic, watercolor, and ink, often combining them in single compositions. Her paper works from this period, exhibit bold color fields and gestural marks, with a balance of control and spontaneity.{{r|wilkins}}{{r|clearwater}}

In the 1970s and 1980s, Frankenthaler's works on paper grew more diverse and experimental, incorporating collage elements, stencils, and mixed media.{{r|elderfield1}}{{r|elderfield2}} These works highlight her willingness to push the boundaries of the medium, treating paper as a space for both delicate nuance and robust experimentation.{{r|wilkins}}{{r|clearwater}}

File: Helen Frankenthaler, From the Turret IX, 1986, Acrylic on paper, 15½ x 21 inches (39.4 x 53.3 cm).jpg

In the later 1980s, Frankenthaler's works on paper became more immediate. With this immediacy she allowed and welcomed the risk of imperfection more so than with her painting. This became a means of discovery that introduced new energy into all aspects of her art. Her From the Turret series of works on paper were inspired by the view from the turret of her Connecticut studio. The stormy landscape in From the Turret IX was painted with immediacy and evokes a blue sea with a cloudy and windy sky.{{r|elderfield1}}{{r|elderfield2}}

In her later years, Frankenthaler's works on paper retained their vitality while adopting a more introspective tone. Her watercolors and acrylics from the 1990s, feature color washes and subtle gradients, evoking landscapes or emotional states.{{r|clearwater}}

Frankenthaler's late works on paper often blur the line between drawing and painting, as seen in her use of colored pencils and crayons alongside fluid washes. These pieces convey a sense of intimacy and directness, reflecting her lifelong commitment to exploring the expressive potential of her materials.{{r|clearwater}}

Frankenthaler recognized a need to continually challenge herself to develop as an artist. For this reason, in 1961, she began to experiment with printmaking at the Universal Limited Art Editions (ULAE), a lithographic workshop in West Islip, Long Island.{{r|harrison}} Frankenthaler collaborated with Tatyana Grosman in 1961 to create her first prints.{{r|harrison}}

In 1976, Frankenthaler began to work within the medium of woodcuts. She collaborated with Kenneth E. Tyler. The first piece they created together was Essence Mulberry (1977), a woodcut that used eight different colors. Essence Mulberry was inspired by two sources: the first was an exhibition of fifteenth century woodcuts that Frankenthaler saw on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the second being a mulberry tree that grew outside of Tyler's studio.

File:Helen Frankenthaler, Earth Slice, 1978, Soft-ground etching sugar-lift etching and aquatint from four copper plates on handmade Mauve HMP rose-oatmeal paper, 15 × 25.7 inches (38.1 × 65.4 cm).jpgFrankenthaler completed a print entitled Earth Slice in 1978, appropriately titled due to its earthy tones and allusions of geological layers.{{r|usf1}} Earth Slice is among the most experimental intaglio prints produced by her.{{r|usf1}} She began experimenting with the image in December 1976 and completed work on the subject in 1978, producing numerous working proofs which show her aesthetic decision-making process.{{r|usf1}} The print combines soft-ground etching, sugar-lift etching, and aquatint techniques, executed on Mauve handmade paper.{{r|usf1}}{{r|usf2}} The composition features earthy tones—browns, ochres, and hints of green—suggesting a natural landscape or terrain.{{r|usf2}} The fluid, organic forms and textural qualities evoke the essence of land and earth, reflecting Frankenthaler's mastery in blending abstraction with elements of the natural world.{{r|usf2}}

File: Helen Frankenthaler, Yellow Jack, 1987, Color lithograph with hand applied acrylic paint, hand-stenciled pastel and crayon on White Arches Cover paper, 30 × 38 in, 76.2 × 96.52 cm.jpgFrom 1985 to 1987, Frankenthaler made a series of ten prints at Tyler Graphics, Ltd.{{r|harrison}}{{r|tg}}{{r|hff}} The catalogue of prints she made at Tyler Graphics includes: Blue Current (1987), Tribal Sign (1987), Ochre Dust (1987), Tiger's Eye (1987), In the Wings (1987), Corot's Mark (1987), Walking Rain (1987), Sudden Snow (1987), Day One (1987), and Yellow Jack (1987).{{r|tg}} These prints were exhibited in Helen Frankenthaler Prints: 1985–1987 at Tyler Graphics, Mount Kisco, New York (March 14–April 10, 1987) and then traveled to LA Louver, Los Angeles, CA (June 20–July 25, 1987).{{r|nyt}}{{r|nga}}

In 1995, Frankenthaler and Tyler collaborated again, creating The Tales of Genji, a series of six woodcut prints. To create woodcuts with a resonance similar to Frankenthaler's painterly style, she painted her plans onto the wood itself, making maquettes. The Tales of Genji took nearly three years to complete. Frankenthaler then went on to create Madame Butterfly, a print that employed one hundred and two different colors and forty-six woodblocks.

Frankenthaler received the National Medal of Arts in 2001.{{cite web|title=Lifetime Honors: National Medal of Arts |url=http://www.nea.gov/honors/medals/medalists_year.html#01 |publisher=National Endowment for the Arts |access-date=December 27, 2011 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110721054307/http://www.nea.gov/honors/medals/medalists_year.html |archive-date=July 21, 2011 }} She served on the National Council on the Arts of the National Endowment for the Arts from 1985 to 1992.{{cite news | url=http://www.salon.com/2011/12/27/abstract_painter_helen_frankenthaler_dies_at_83/ | title=Abstract Painter Helen Frankenthaler Dies At 83 | work=Salon.com | date=December 27, 2011 | access-date=December 27, 2011 | author=Kennedy, Mark for The Associated Press | archive-date=January 8, 2014 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140108220241/http://www.salon.com/2011/12/27/abstract_painter_helen_frankenthaler_dies_at_83/ | url-status=dead }} Her other awards include First Prize for Painting at the first Paris Biennial (1959); Temple Gold Medal, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia (1968); [http://home2.nyc.gov/html/dcla/html/awards/awards.shtml New York City Mayor's Award of Honor for Arts and Culture] (1986); and Distinguished Artist Award for Lifetime Achievement, College Art Association (1994).{{cite web|title=Collection Online Helen Frankenthaler - Guggenheim Museum|url=http://www.guggenheim.org/new-york/collections/collection-online/artists/bios/916|website=Guggenheim Museum|publisher=The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation (SRGF)|access-date=3 February 2016|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303232253/http://www.guggenheim.org/new-york/collections/collection-online/artists/bios/916|archive-date=3 March 2016}} In 1990, she was elected into the National Academy of Design as an Associate member, and became a full Academician in 1994.

Frankenthaler did not consider herself a feminist: "For me, being a 'lady painter' was never an issue. I don't resent being a female painter. I don't exploit it. I paint."Grace Glueck says in the NYT this quote comes from: {{cite book|last=Gruen|first=John|title=The Party's Over Now: Reminiscences of the fifties—New York's artists, writers, musicians, and their friends|url=https://archive.org/details/partysovernowrem0000grue|url-access=registration|year=1972|publisher=Viking Press|isbn=0-916366-54-5}} Mary Beth Edelson's feminist piece Some Living American Women Artists / Last Supper (1972) appropriated Leonardo da Vinci's The Last Supper, with the heads of notable women artists including Frankenthaler collaged over the heads of Christ and his apostles. This image, addressing the role of religious and art historical iconography in the subordination of women, became "one of the most iconic images of the feminist art movement."{{cite web|url=http://drawingproject.frostartmuseum.org/mary-beth-edelson/|title=Mary Beth Edelson|work=The Frost Art Museum Drawing Project|access-date=11 January 2014}}{{cite web|url=http://clara.nmwa.org/index.php?g=entity_detail&entity_id=1321|title=Mary Beth Adelson|work=Clara - Database of Women Artists|publisher=National Museum of Women in the Arts|location=Washington, D.C.|access-date=10 January 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140110213429/http://clara.nmwa.org/index.php?g=entity_detail&entity_id=1321|archive-date=10 January 2014|url-status=dead}}

In 1953, Kenneth Noland and Morris Louis saw her Mountains and Sea which, Louis said later, was a "bridge between Pollock and what was possible."{{cite web|author=Gibson, Eric|title=Pushing Past Abstraction |url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052970203391104577124801133185594|date=December 27, 2011|work=The Wall Street Journal|publisher=Dow Jones|access-date=December 27, 2011}} On the other hand, some critics called her work "merely beautiful".{{cite news |last=Rose |first=Joel |date=December 27, 2011 |title=Abstract Artist Helen Frankenthaler Dies At Age 83 |work=National Public Radio (NPR) |url=https://www.npr.org/2011/12/27/144323377/abstract-artist-helen-frankenthaler-dies-at-age-83 |access-date=December 27, 2011}} Grace Glueck's obituary in The New York Times summed up Frankenthaler's career:

Critics have not unanimously praised Ms. Frankenthaler's art. Some have seen it as thin in substance, uncontrolled in method, too sweet in color and too "poetic". But it has been far more apt to garner admirers like the critic Barbara Rose, who wrote in 1972 of Ms. Frankenthaler's gift for "the freedom, spontaneity, openness and complexity of an image, not exclusively of the studio or the mind, but explicitly and intimately tied to nature and human emotions.

The New York-based Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, established and endowed by the artist during her lifetime, is dedicated to promoting greater public interest in and understanding of the visual arts.{{Cite web|url=http://www.frankenthalerfoundation.org/foundation/mission/|title=Mission - Foundation - Helen Frankenthaler Foundation|last=exhibit-e.com|website=www.frankenthalerfoundation.org|access-date=2018-03-22}}{{cite web | url=http://observer.com/2013/07/elizabeth-smith-named-director-of-helen-frankenthaler-foundation/ | title=Elizabeth A. T. Smith Named Director of Helen Frankenthaler Foundation | work=Observer|location=New York City| date=9 July 2013 }} In 2021 the foundation created Frankenthaler Climate Initiative.{{cite web |title=Grants For Clean, Efficient Energy in Visual Arts Museums |url=http://www.frankenthalerclimateinitiative.org/ |website=Frankenthaler Climate Initiative |access-date=2 August 2021}} In July 2021, the foundation award the first round of grants totaling $5.1 million. The recipients included the Museo de Arte de Ponce, the Santa Rosa Indian Museum and Cultural Center, the Studio Museum in Harlem, and the Yale University Arts Center.{{cite web |title=Helen Frankenthaler Foundation Awards $5.1 Million in Climate Grants to Art Institutions |url=https://www.artforum.com/news/helen-frankenthaler-foundation-awards-5-1-million-in-climate-grants-to-art-institutions-86276 |website=Artforum |date=29 July 2021 |access-date=2 August 2021}}

In a 2023 lawsuit filed at the New York Supreme Court, Frankenthaler's nephew Frederick Iseman claimed that Clifford Ross and other family members on the board exploited the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation "to advance their own personal interests and careers" and were committed to completely shutting down the foundation in the near future.Daniel Cassady (9 November 2023), [https://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/helen-frankenthaler-foundation-lawsuit-1234686230/ Bitter Family Feud Revealed in Lawsuit Against the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, Accuses Board of 'Grabstract Expressionism'] ARTnews.

Frankenthaler's first solo exhibition took place at the Tibor de Nagy Gallery, New York, in the fall of 1951. Her first major museum show, a retrospective of her 1950s work with a catalog by the critic and poet Frank O'Hara, a curator at the Museum of Modern Art, was at the Jewish Museum in 1960. Subsequent solo exhibitions include "Helen Frankenthaler," Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (1969; traveled to Whitechapel Gallery, London; Orangerie Herrenhausen, Hanover; and Kongresshalle, Berlin), and "Helen Frankenthaler: a Painting Retrospective," The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth (1989–90; traveled to the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; and Detroit Institute of Arts).{{cite web | url=http://www.gagosian.com/exhibitions/painted-on-21st-street--march-08-2013 | title=Painted on 21st Street - March 8 - April 13, 2013 - Gagosian Gallery | publisher=Gagosian Gallery | access-date=3 February 2016 | archive-date=4 March 2016 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304052540/http://www.gagosian.com/exhibitions/painted-on-21st-street--march-08-2013 | url-status=dead }} Miles McEnery Gallery, a New York-based contemporary art gallery which exhibited Color-Field and Abstract Expressionist paintings, showcased a range of her work in 2009 "Helen Frankenthaler," December 10, 2009 – January 23, 2010).{{Cite web|url=https://ocula.com/art-galleries/miles-mcenery-gallery/|title=Miles McEnery Gallery|website=Ocula|date=18 May 2021}}{{Cite web|url=https://www.milesmcenery.com/exhibitions/helen-frankenthaler2|title=Helen Frankenthaler|website=Miles McEnery Gallery}} In 2016 her work was included in the exhibition Women of Abstract Expressionism organized by the Denver Art Museum.{{cite book |last1=Marter |first1=Joan M. |title=Women of abstract expressionism |date=2016 |publisher=Denver Art Museum Yale University Press |location=Denver New Haven |isbn=9780300208429 |page=175}} On October 6, 2019, Frankenthaler was included in Sparkling Amazons: Abstract Expressionist Women of the 9th St. Show at the Katonah Museum of Art in Westchester County, NY.{{Cite web |url=http://artdaily.com/news/117349/Abstract-Expressionist-Women-of-the-9th-St--show-comes-to-the-Katonah-Museum-of-Art#.XZ9ZKCVlAc0|title=Abstract Expressionist Women Of The 9th St Show Comes To The Katonah Museum Of Art |access-date=2022-11-23 |website=artdaily.com}} which ran until January 26, 2020; *2019: "Postwar Women: alumnae of the Art Students League of New York 1945-1965", Phyllis Harriman Gallery, Art Students League of NY; curated by Will Corwin.;{{Cite news |date=2019-11-20 |title=New York Galleries: What to See Right Now |language=en-US |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/20/arts/design/new-york-galleries-what-to-see-right-now.html |access-date=2022-11-23 |issn=0362-4331}} 2020: "9th Street Club", Gazelli Art House, London; curated by Will Corwin{{Cite web |last=Dazed |date=2020-01-15 |title=20 London art events in 2020 to leave the house for |url=https://www.dazeddigital.com/art-photography/article/47375/1/20-london-art-events-in-2020-to-leave-the-house-for |access-date=2022-11-23 |website=Dazed |language=en}}

In 2021, a decade after her death the New Britain Museum of American Art mounted an exhibition of her works on paper from the final stages of her opus titled "Helen Frankenthaler; Late Works 1990 - 2003".{{Cite web|url=https://nbmaa.org/exhibitions/helen-frankenthaler|title = Helen Frankenthaler: Late Works, 1990–2003| date=11 February 2021 }}

In 2023 her work was included in the exhibition Action, Gesture, Paint: Women Artists and Global Abstraction 1940-1970 at the Whitechapel Gallery in London.{{cite web |title=Action, Gesture, Paint |url=https://www.whitechapelgallery.org/exhibitions/action-gesture-paint-women-and-global-abstraction-1940-70/ |website=Whitechapel Gallery |access-date=19 April 2023 |language=en}}

Every Sound Is a Shape of Time, a collections-focused group exhibition at the Pérez Art Museum Miami, Florida, showcased Frankenthaler's work in the collection alongside Julie Mehretu, Jules Olitski, and Louis Morris, among others.{{Cite web |title=Every Sound Is a Shape of Time: Selections from PAMM's Collection • Pérez Art Museum Miami |url=https://www.pamm.org/en/exhibition/every-sound-is-a-shape-of-time-selections-from-pamms-collection/ |access-date=2024-09-04 |website=Pérez Art Museum Miami |language=en-US}}

• Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto
• Art Institute of Chicago
• Centre Pompidou, Paris
• The Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller Empire State Plaza Art Collection
• Kalamazoo Institute of Arts, Kalamazoo, MI
• Los Angeles County Museum of Art
• Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
• Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
• Museum of Modern Art, New York
• Museum Reinhard Ernst, Wiesbaden, Germany
• National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
• National Gallery of Australia
• Pérez Art Museum Miami, FL{{Cite web |title=Blue Jump • Pérez Art Museum Miami |url=https://www.pamm.org/en/artwork/1997.3 |access-date=2023-08-23 |website=Pérez Art Museum Miami |language=en-US}}
• Portland Art Museum, Oregon
• San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
• Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York City
• Speed Art Museum, Louisville, KY
• Spencer Museum of Art, Lawrence, KS
• Utah Museum of Fine Arts, Salt Lake City, UT
• University of Michigan Museum of Art, Ann Arbor, MI
• Walker Art Center, Minneapolis
• Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

She was a presidential appointee to the National Council on the Arts, which advises the NEA's chairman. In The New York Times in 1989, she argued government funding for the arts was "not part of the democratic process" and was "beginning to spawn an art monster".{{cite news |title=Helen Frankenthaler: Innovative painter who took abstract art in a new direction |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/helen-frankenthaler-innovative-painter-who-took-abstract-art-in-a-new-direction-6288314.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220509/https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/helen-frankenthaler-innovative-painter-who-took-abstract-art-in-a-new-direction-6288314.html |archive-date=2022-05-09 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live |access-date=October 22, 2018 |work=The Independent |date=January 12, 2012}} According to the Los Angeles Times, "Frankenthaler did take a highly public stance during the late 1980s 'culture wars' that eventually led to deep budget cuts for the National Endowment for the Arts and a ban on grants to individual artists that still persists. In a 1989 commentary for The New York Times, she wrote that, while "censorship and government interference in the directions and standards of art are dangerous and not part of the democratic process", controversial grants to Andres Serrano, Robert Mapplethorpe, and others reflected a trend in which the NEA was supporting work "of increasingly dubious quality. Is the council, once a helping hand, now beginning to spawn an art monster? Do we lose art ... in the guise of endorsing experimentation?"{{cite news | url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2011-dec-28-la-me-helen-frankenthaler-20111228-story.html | title=Painter took art in new directions | work=Los Angeles Times | date=December 28, 2011 | access-date=December 5, 2013 | author=Boehm, Mike}}{{cite news | url=https://www.nytimes.com/1989/07/17/opinion/did-we-spawn-an-arts-monster.html | title=Did We Spawn an Arts Monster? | work=The New York Times | date=17 July 1989 |last=Frankenthaler|first=Helen}}

Frankenthaler died on December 27, 2011, at the age of 83 in Darien, Connecticut, following a long and undisclosed illness. "Helen Frankenthaler, Abstract Painter Who Shaped a Movement, Dies at 83" by GRACE GLUECK, The New York Times, DEC. 27, 2011 [https://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/28/arts/helen-frankenthaler-abstract-painter-dies-at-83.html]

• Lyrical abstraction
• Wash (visual arts)
• Sunset Corner

• Alexander Nemerov. 2021. Fierce Poise: Helen Frankenthaler and 1950s New York. Penguin.
• Elderfield, John. Helen Frankenthaler, 1989, Harry N. Abrams {{ISBN|0-8109-0916-2}}
• Gabriel, Mary. Ninth Street Women: Lee Krasner, Elaine de Kooning, Grace Hartigan, Joan Mitchell, and Helen Frankenthaler: five painters and the movement that changed modern art. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2018
• Helen Frankenthaler, [http://www.worldcatlibraries.org/oclc/39157480&referer=brief_results After Mountains and Sea: Frankenthaler 1956-1959] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070929095845/http://www.worldcatlibraries.org/oclc/39157480%26referer%3Dbrief_results |date=2007-09-29 }} (New York : Guggenheim Museum, 1998.) {{ISBN|0-8109-6911-4}}, {{ISBN|978-0-8109-6911-7}} {{ISBN|978-0892071975}}
• Marika Herskovic, [http://www.worldcatlibraries.org/oclc/50666793&tab=holdings New York School Abstract Expressionists Artists Choice by Artists,] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070929103229/http://www.worldcatlibraries.org/oclc/50666793%26tab%3Dholdings |date=2007-09-29 }} (New York School Press, 2000.) {{ISBN|0-9677994-0-6}}. p. 16; p. 37; pp. 142–145, York 1986. {{ISBN|0-87099-477-8}}
• Pollock, Griselda, "Killing Men and Dying Women". In: Orton, Fred and Pollock, Griselda (eds), Avant-Gardes and Partisans Reviewed. London: Redwood Books, 1996. {{ISBN|0-7190-4398-0}}
• Wilkin, Karen. Frankenthaler: Works on Paper 1949-1984, George Braziller (February 1985), {{ISBN|978-0-8076-1103-6}}

• Alison Rowley, [https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/471133437 Helen Frankenthaler: Painting History, Writing painting]. I.B.Tauris Publishers, 2007.
• Helen Frankenthaler in Interview with Henry Geldzahler, in [https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/31738530 Theories and Documents of Contemporary Art], edited by Kristine Stiles and Peter Selz, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996, pp. 28–30. {{ISBN|0-520-20253-8}}
• Helen Frankenthaler in [https://www.aaa.si.edu/download_pdf_transcript/ajax?record_id=edanmdm-AAADCD_oh_212046 'Oral history Interview with Barbara Rose, 1968], for the Archives of American Art - Smithsonian Institution

{{wikiquote}}

• [http://frankenthalerfoundation.org Helen Frankenthaler Foundation]
• [https://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/interviews/oral-history-interview-helen-frankenthaler-12171 Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution: Oral History Interview]
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20140324140808/http://uk.blouinartinfo.com/node/1012685 Video: Helen Frankenthaler at Turner Contemporary, Margate by Laura Bushell on Artinfo 4 March 2014]
• [https://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/29/arts/design/helen-frankenthaler-and-john-chamberlain-an-appraisal.html?ref=arts Roberta Smith, "Two Artists Who Embraced Freedom" New York Times, 12/29/11]
• [http://www.askart.com/AskART/artists/search/Search_Repeat.aspx?searchtype=IMAGES&artist=30037 Helen Frankenthaler Artwork Examples on AskART.]
• [https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB122609409221009463 "Frankenthaler's New Way of Making Art", The Wall Street Journal, November 8, 2008]
• [http://nga.gov.au/InternationalPrints/Tyler/Default.cfm?MnuID=3&ArtistIRN=16772&List=True&CREIRN=16772&ORDER_SELECT=13&VIEW_SELECT=5&GrpNam=12&TNOTES=TRUE Helen Frankenthaler in the National Gallery of Australia's Kenneth Tyler Collection]
• [http://cdm15264.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/p16075coll3/id/41 Helen Frankenthaler "Contemporary Experience Lecture" The Baltimore Museum of Art: Baltimore, Maryland, 1970] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150601234436/http://cdm15264.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/p16075coll3/id/41 |date=2015-06-01 }} Accessed June 26, 2012
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20170115194713/http://collections.umfa.utah.edu/index.php/Search/Index?search=frankenthaler Helen Frankenthaler in the Utah Museum of Fine Arts Collection]
• {{IMDb name|id=0291285|name=Helen Frankenthaler}}

{{reflist|30em|refs=

{{cite book |last=Clearwater |first=Bonnie |date=February 14, 2003 |title=Frankenthaler: Paintings on Paper 1949 - 2002 |url= https://www.amazon.com/Frankenthaler-Paintings-Paper-Bonnie-Clearwater/dp/1888708158 |publisher= Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami |page=112 |isbn=1888708158}}

{{cite book |last=Elderfield |first=John |date=January 1, 1989 |title=Frankenthaler |url= https://www.amazon.com/Frankenthaler-John-Elderfield/dp/B000WTIXIA |publisher= New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc. |page=448 |isbn= 0810909162}}

{{cite book |last=Elderfield |first=John |date=December 31, 2024 |title=Frankenthaler: Revised and expanded edition |url= https://www.amazon.com/Frankenthaler-Revised-expanded-John-Elderfield/dp/084784126X/ref=sr_1_1 |publisher= Gagosian / Rizzoli |page=472 |isbn= 084784126X}}

{{Cite web |url= https://www.frankenthalerfoundation.org/artworks/prints/1980s |title= 1980s Prints |date=April 2, 2020 |publisher= Helen Frankenthaler Foundation |website=frankenthalerfoundation.org |language=en-US |access-date=May 9, 2025}}

{{Cite web |url= https://searchthecollection.nga.gov.au/artist/16772/helen-frankenthaler |title= Helen Frankenthaler |date=April 2, 2020 |publisher= National Gallery is Australia |website= nga.gov.au |language=en-US |access-date=May 9, 2025}}

{{Cite web |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2000/03/19/nyregion/kenneth-tyler-to-close-studio.html |title= Kenneth Tyler to Close Studio |date=March 19, 2000 |publisher= New York Times |website=nytimes.com |language=en-US |access-date=May 9, 2025}}

{{cite book |last=Harrison |first=Pegram |author-link= |date=September 1, 1996 |title=Frankenthaler: A Catalogue Raisonné: Prints 1961 - 1994 |url= https://books.google.com/books/about/Frankenthaler.html?id=--EV0AEACAAJ |publisher= Harry N. Abrams, Inc. |page=510 |isbn=0810933322}}

{{cite book |last= Rose |first= Barbara |date=January 1, 1970 |title= Frankenthaler |url= https://www.amazon.com/Frankenthaler-Barbara-Rose/dp/0810901269/ref=sr_1_1 |publisher= New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc. |page= 274 |isbn= 0810901269}}

{{Cite web |url= https://www.masterworksfineart.com/bio/tyler-graphics-printmaking-studio |title= Tyler Graphics Printmaking Studio Biography |publisher=Tyler Graphics Ltd. |website=masterworksfineart.com |language=en-US |access-date=May 9, 2025}}

{{Cite book |first=Shannon |last=Annis |url=https://cam.usf.edu/CAM/exhibitions/2022_06_The_Lyrical_Moment/The-Lyrical-Moment-Catalogue-Spreads-FINAL-web.pdf |title= A Transformative Gift to the USF Art Collection |publisher=USF Contemporary Art Museum, Tampa, FL |date= 2022 |language=en-US |access-date= May 13, 2025 |page= |isbn=9780986076770}}

{{Cite book |first=Ruth E. |last=Fine |url=https://ira.usf.edu/cam/exhibitions/2022_06_The_Lyrical_Moment/The-Lyrical-Moment-Catalogue-Spreads-FINAL-web.pdf |title= Frankenthaler's Romance with Printmaking "Sharing and Participating to the End" |publisher=USF Contemporary Art Museum, Tampa, FL |date= 2022 |language=en-US |access-date= May 13, 2025 |page= |isbn=9780986076770}}

{{cite book |last= Wilkins |first= Karen |date=January 1, 1984 |title= Frankenthaler: Works on Paper 1949 - 1984 |url= https://www.amazon.com/Frankenthaler-Works-1949-1984-Karen-Wilkin/dp/0807611042 |publisher= George Braziller |page= 128|isbn= 0807611042}}

}}

{{Feminist art movement in the United States}}

{{Navboxes

| title = Awards for Helen Frankenthaler

| list =

{{Connecticut Women's Hall of Fame}}

{{National Medal of Arts recipients 2000s}}

}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Frankenthaler, Helen}}

Category:1928 births

Category:2011 deaths

Category:20th-century American painters

Category:20th-century American printmakers

Category:20th-century American women painters

Category:Abstract expressionist artists

Category:American abstract painters

Category:American people of German-Jewish descent

Category:American women printmakers

Category:Art Students League of New York alumni

Category:Bennington College alumni

Category:Dalton School alumni

Category:Hunter College faculty

Category:Jewish American painters

Category:Members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters

Category:Painters from New York City

Category:People from the Upper East Side

Category:People from Provincetown, Massachusetts

Category:United States National Medal of Arts recipients

Category:Honorary members of the Royal Academy

Category:21st-century American Jews

Category:20th-century American Jews

Category:21st-century American painters

Category:21st-century American printmakers

Category:21st-century American women painters