Helen Frankenthaler, artist

Aleathia says:

I have been lucky enough in my travels to find an art museum to wander around and continue to be fascinated by the colors and movements swirling around in an artist's head.  I appreciate the depth and time it takes to create some of the master works in all of their glory and reality, but abstract art has always gripped me the most.  It is often the least understood and the hardest to explain. Most people like what is familiar and gravitate towards pieces that have a recognizable imagery. The wonderful thing about abstract art is each person gets to create their own interpreted story.  They can see what they want to see before understanding what the artist intended.

Helen Frankenthaler was born in New York City in 1928.  She was a notable American Abstract painter and helped to develop color field painting.  She exhibited work around the world starting in the 1950's until her death in 2011.  She continued to produce viable work her entire career.

Her main influences were Hans Hoffman, Jackson Pollock, and Clement Greenberg.  Frankenthaler's work is often identified "with the use of fluid shapes, abstract masses and lyrical gestures".  She has said "A really good picture looks as if it's happened at once."

The follow works of Helen Frankethaler are from the time span of 1952-1988. Her growth and color composition are most notable.

"It is an order familiar and new at the same time."--Helen Frankenthaler

1952 Mountains and Sea

This noted a big breakthrough in the style of painting with oils that looked like pastels and was then known as "stain painting".  Her work through the 1950's were similar in form containing evenly weighted compositions and stain painting.


1959 Mother Goose Melody

In this work the color palette is much darker and she invites the idea of a heavily, densely weighted side and an airy constructed side in the painting together.


1960-1962 Seascape with Dunes

This is a very centralized piece with a lot of raw canvas showing the stains of oil paints like ghost shadows.


1963-1968 Mauve District and Flood

These pieces were a large move towards acrylic paint which lent her to have a deeper sense of color within her chosen palette.  This move to acrylics saw less raw canvas and the paintings begin to feel more full and more abstract.


1970-1971  Sesame and Chairman of the Board

Frankenthaler continues the use of acrylics, but starts looking at her work with new formal consideration.

"Frankenthaler 'points to the four different compositional placements of the painting:its overall flatness, the play of the left side versus the right side, the interior of the white crossing passage--what she refers to as a cable or crevice'--and drawn lines, about whose space making she observes, 'I was very conscious of threading line through the cable/crevice'"


1972-1975 Hint from Bassano and Nature Abhors a Vacuum

Her work in this time is filled with wide swathes of color with the combination of levels both symmetrical and asymmetrical in context along with horizontal line movement.


1976-1977 Natural Answer and M.

After a trip to the Southwest, Frankenthaler came home with a new color palette which were mostly terra cotta shades. In this time period, the paintings were actually painted instead of stained.  With this there is a definite sense of structure and horizontal brush movement.


1978-1981  for E.M.

Paintings are becoming more rigid with themes and lines have a more interlocking look.  White starts to be a significant accent through them.


1981-1985 Reflections on a Blue Pool

Frankenthaler moves into a new period where the paint appears stained again with the addition of raised paint which adds texture and depth to the work.

1986-1988 Morpheus

She begins to move into implied grid like structures lending the work to have a more vertical movement and feeling.



I hope you enjoy these few selections from Helen Frankenthaler's collection.  Feel free to look her up as there is a vast amount of her work on the internet.

It's Ok to Be Weak

Aleathia says:

It has been a long time since I have posted.  There have been too many recent deaths, too many sicknesses in this house, and only so much energy for life to go around.  I have been pushing through and most everyone around me has not seen the deep and uncentered pain that runs my daily activity. Hanging around the theater department as a teenager afforded me great abilities at hiding behind a created character.

My father has been gone three months and I miss our phone calls every week.  I miss the sound of his impatience to get off the phone after 15 minutes which I always knew was an effort despite his love for me.  I miss his laugh.  Grieving his loss has been easier than my mother's.  He had a funeral and I got to spend some time with family who missed him just as much as me and who would remember all the wonderful things he taught them over their lives.  I got to say goodbye.  I was able to start that healing process in a positive way.

I woke up one day last month and realized that I had not allowed myself to grieve my mother's death. For two years I have been dragging my heart through the mud.  I have pretended to hate her and to be "relieved" she was gone.  I had such a hard time understanding her sudden death without a coroner's report or being able to say goodbye. There was so much about the ending that was disconnected, so much more I wanted to say to her.  Mostly, I wanted to tell her I loved her one more time.

I woke up knowing that I had to tell myself that I hated her to save my own life.  I could not let my heart feel that unsurmountable pain of loss.  I lost my mother at 40.  We had so much more history to make and wounds to heal and laughter to put out into the universe.  I can see now that I was protecting myself from her death.  It was the longest, darkest denial I have ever put myself through and I thank the heavens that I made it to the other side.

I am pulling down this wall brick by brick.  I wrote her the yearly letter I promised I would write.  I let myself cry for the loss of her when it comes over me without hatred or guilt.  I am not weak, but losing my mother nearly broke me.  No one really noticed I was dying inside, that I hated myself and life, that I didn't care too much if I woke up or not.  I'm glad that darkness is lifted.  I let myself be tired now.  I let my heart ache.  I let myself feel the love from my family and friends.

It has been a lonely two years and I did it to myself.  I am my toughest critic and have always been.

I am writing this post today for people who are going through a loss and a heavy grief.  Reach out to those people that love you.  They will love you through this ugly time; they will wipe your tears; they will hold your hand without judgment.  Don't go through it alone. Ask for help. No one is truly alone in the world.

Thank you to my love, Michael, for quietly waiting until I was ready to deal with life.  To my dear Chloe for being sensitive and for hugs when you just knew I needed them.  To my friends who listen and let me work things out at my own pace.  You are all dear to me.  This blog is going to be on an upswing from now on.  It has been hard to write them knowing my father wouldn't be reading them, but it is time to let that go too.

Stay tuned for a new blog on Helen Frankenthaler.  It is gonna be pretty.

Aleathia