Helen Frankenthaler
A quick analysis of Post Painterly Abstract artist Helen Frankenthaler’s painting Mountains and Sea.
Helen Frankenthaler was born in 1928 and died in 2011 at the age of 83. She started out using thin oil paint and then in the 1960s transitioned to acrylic on canvas. In the 1960s, artists started to use more acrylic paint as a preference. She's notable for her placement of the canvas on the ground and then staining raw or unprimed canvas in a controlled manner. She'd always claim to be a non-objective artist. She wasn't trying to be illustrative in her art. The stained canvas made the paint appear like it was embedded into the canvas and not sitting on top of it. She was influenced by the physical world around her rather than any kind of deep existential fear or anxiety. She was 10 years or younger than most of the New York School Abstract Expressionists. She benefited from being born to an affluent family in New York City. She went to great schools, and in 1950 she saw Jackson Pollock's drip paintings when they were exhibited at Betty Parsons Gallery in 1950. She saw the art of rhythm and lavender mist in the large dripped environments.
She was 23 when she made her breakout painting. Her breakout painting is called ‘’Mountains and Sea.” It was done in 1952 after she saw Pollock’s first drip painting. This is a large-scale painting similar to many of Pollock’s drip paintings. Sizing 7x10 feet. This painting now hangs in the National Gallery in Washington, D.C. You can absorb the atmosphere and sensibility that she had from the natural world that she was responding to. She never claimed to paint a location, but she was inspired by the colors of nature. The feeling that she had when she was in this landscape to make this painting. Where she received her inspiration is through her typically spending time in Provincetown, Massachusetts. She would spend part of her summers out there and respond to the seascape. The place is important to Helen Frankenthaler, but she's not describing it specifically.
I hope you all enjoy the rest of your week. And next Sunday we’ll be looking at Jackson Pollock.