Helen Frankenthaler
See also:  [Abstract Expressionism (ab-ex)]
           [Robert Motherwell]


Helen Frankenthaler

On this page:
              {Her influence on Noland, Louis, etc}


   


Her influence on Noland, Louis, etc

[Richardson & Stangos (1974) [">Concepts of Modern Art].
 "Minimal Art" by Edward Lucie-Smith;

BEGIN BLOCK QUOTE

[P. 246] 

[Morris] Louis and [Kenneth] Noland were not,
Pollock, New York artists. They lived in 
Washington. Never-the-less, it was a visit
which they jointly paid to New York in 
April 1953 which paved the way to a stylistic
break-through for both of them. They were 
impressed not only by their discussions with
[art critic, Clement] Greenberg, but by a 
recent paiting by the Abst Expressionist Helen
Frankenthaler, which they saw in her studio.
The painting was called Mountains and Sea.
Louis was afterwards to say of Frankenthaler, 
"She was a bridge between Pollock and what 
was possible." The direction Louis chose to
take was, however, an expected one. AbEx was
essentially painterly; Louis proceeded to 
develop its ideas by abandoning this apparently
essential quality. He developed a technique 
for staining the unprimed canvas with thin
colour, so that instead of paint lying upon
a surface, there was now the impression that
paint and surface were inseparably one. In the
earlier works in which this technique is
used, the colour forms floating veils, but
gradually it began to organise itself and
to become more regular. Louis's last works
(he died of lung cancer in September 1962)
consists of stripes, colour which lies inert
within the surface. One can not describe 
these stripes as being "drawn" - they have
no sense of line. Nortions of "design" have
also been abandoned. What counts is the 
operation of colour. In these late works,
Louis comes close to the work of Barnett
Newman. 

END BLOCK QUOTE





Stuff

Oddly enough (mainly to Professors Don Taylor and 
David Newman) i first encountered Helen's work
before i did Motherwell. In fact the first time
that i saw one of his "Spanish Republic" series,
i mis-took it for a Franz Klein (who had already
taken over a large part of my brain - no doubt
because of J'Lo's (Jennefer Locke) influence in
my drawing classes with her). 

So, as with the Beatles - i find that spiritually
i am closer to George Harrison and Robert Motherwell,
but in terms of temprament Paul McCartney and
Helen Frankenthaler. Odd these things. Sort of
like those beautiful "building stairs" of pure
form that John Adams developed from the so-called
"Shaker Loops" (the Shakers were a religious/philo
group in the early USA). The structure of thought
transformed by the spirituality of possibilities
and and crystalised by the darkened mirror of
pure black on white. (even with a duck; still).

Chronology