Helen Frankenthaler
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| Helen Frankenthaler spent her life as a painter of contradictions. Born on December 12, 1928, a New York City native, Frankenthaler did not immerse herself in the growing avant-garde culture until early adulthood. As a teen, she graduated from the Dalton School where she studied with Rufino Tamayo, a renowned Mexican painter. She completed her undergraduate work in Vermont at Bennington College. Following her graduation, she moved back to New York City set on expanding her influence in the art world. Her experimentation in the realm of avant-garde Abstract Expressionism began after seeing an exhibition of Jackson Pollock's Work. Frankenthaler pioneered the technique of staining unprimed canvas with oil paints. Her unique style differed from the layered look of Pollock's pieces.
Critics expound on Frankenthaler's attention to color in her paintings, while she insists that her main focus is the drawing. Many credit her with expanding the boundaries of cubism; she refers to herself as a Cubist painter. The paradoxes of her life as a painter continued as she gained notoriety internationally. Against advice from marketers, Frankenthaler refrained from the movement from large to small canvas work, despite the lack of purchasers for larger pieces. Bias against women artists made art more difficult to sell, particularly in European markets. In the genre of Abstract Expressionism, women's art was often viewed as overly feminine and concerned with visual continuity as opposed to subject and context. Often mistaken for non-representational, Frankenthaler's work is based on real or imagined landscapes. Because so much of her work was rooted in nature, she complicated the stigma that she was a “feminine” artist. While largely recognized as a painter, Frankenthaler has created an immense body of work in the field of printmaking. Throughout her extensive career she has exhibited at such prestigious museums as the Whitney, the Guggenheim, and New York 's Museum of Modern Art. Her art has traveled on the American circuit from Fort Worth, to Los Angeles, to Detroit, and abroad in the 1960's and early 70's; Paris, Milan, London, Berlin, Montreal . She was one of only four American painters presented at the Venice Biennale in1966. Frankenthaler has called Connecticut home since the early 1970's. She resides in Darien, CT, where she maintains her primary studio. | |||||||||
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