HELEN FRANKENTHALER

The paintings in this exhibition offer a succinct exploration of Frankenthaler’s ongoing experiments. In the 1950s, she developed a signature technique of pouring thinned oil paint on raw canvas and allowing the medium to soak into the support. By the early 1960s, she shifted to acrylic paint, enabling more defined edges and precipitating a new emphasis on shape. Attentive to the relationship between painting and landscape, she considered these forms in geographic terms, calling them “districts” or “territories.” By the late 1980s, these material investigations increasingly yielded moodily resonant compositions, like Toward Dark (1988), a recently acquired painting making its MoMA debut.

Ultimately, each fearless development contributes to a distinctive whole. “I’ve explored a variety of directions and themes over the years,” Frankenthaler reflected. “But I think in all my painting you can see the signature of one artist, the work of one wrist.”

^{Organized by Samantha Friedman, Curator, Department of Drawings and Prints, with Elizabeth Wickham, Curatorial Assistant, Department of Painting and Sculpture.}