Helen Frankenthaler
Helen Frankenthaler
Helen Frankenthalerwas an American abstract expressionist painter. She was a major contributor to the history of postwar American painting. Having exhibited her work for over six decades, she spanned several generations of abstract painters while continuing to produce vital and ever-changing new work. Frankenthaler began exhibiting her large-scale abstract expressionist paintings in contemporary museums and galleries in the early 1950s. She was included in the 1964 Post-Painterly Abstraction exhibition curated by Clement Greenberg that introduced a newer generation of abstract...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPainter
Date of Birth12 December 1928
CityNew York City, NY
CountryUnited States of America
I've explored a variety of directions and themes over the years. But I think in my painting you can see the signature of one artist, the work of one wrist.
Every so often every artist feels, 'I'll never paint again. The muse has gone out the window.' In 1985, I hardly painted at all for three months, and it was agonizing. I looked at reproductions. I stared at Matisse. I stared at the Old Masters. I stared at the Quattrocento. And I thought to myself - Don't push it! If you try too hard to get at something, you almost push it away.
The landscapes were in my arms as I did it.