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Helen Frankenthaler
The following description was submitted by the event organizer.
A towering figure in American painting of the 20th century, Helen Frankenthaler (1928-2011) was one of first major abstract expressionist painters to develop a unique technique of painting that married a fluid paint process with the warp and weft of the canvas so that they became one and the same, fusing color and movement into an emotional whole. Her lyrical abstractions of sensuous color, light, and space both enlighten and enrich the viewer’s sensibilities with their unity and immediacy of effect.
When Frankenthaler turned to printmaking in 1963, she brought the same independence of spirit and challenging of convention to the process-bound world of the print atelier – as her stain and poured technique had been to painting – in order to create new methodologies of production to capture the act of spontaneous expression. Curated by Bruce Guenther, the exhibition presents a cross section of her work in the four major print media – woodcuts, intaglio, lithographs, and screenprints – that showcases her innovation and original contribution to printmaking. Drawn from the holdings of the Jordan D. Schnitzer Collection, the exhibition is especially rich in woodcuts, which was the last of the four print media picked up by Frankenthaler and the one in which she virtually reinvented the process to incorporate the vital energy and flux of her signature paintings. The woodblocks are considered her most original contribution to printmaking and some of the most beautiful prints made.