Color, Landscape, Atmosphere
wina: Das Jüdische Stadtmagazin (online), July 2022
German original: https://www.wina-magazin.at/farbe-landschaft-atmosphaere/
Kunsthalle Krems is exhibiting paintings and drawings by Helen Frankenthaler, one of the most important representatives of American abstract expressionism.
They are fine webs on paper and powerful paintings. Concrete objects, places, and people are not often found in the works of Helen Frankenthaler. But her abstract color compositions always suggest landscapes, give the feeling of sun, heat and flickering air, and lead viewers of her paintings into other worlds, usually with a positive mood. Hardly ever does it become gloomy or crude.
Florian Steininger, artistic director of the Kunsthalle Krems and curator of the exhibition, began preparing the Frankenthal show three years ago. He himself had already been intensively involved with the American abstract expressionists during his studies, and one can see his joy at having succeeded in bringing more than 70 of Frankenthaler's works to Krems.
"Her work has very rarely been shown comprehensively in German-speaking countries," the Austrian art historian tells us. It is also hardly represented in European museums and collections. Only one large painting can be found in Vienna's Museum of Modern Art - and now forms the finale of the exhibition in Krems. In addition, there is a small work from the private collection of an Austrian collector. The main lender and cooperation partner of the exhibition is the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation in New York, says Steiniger, who curated the show - a cooperation with the Museum Folkwang in Essen, which will show an almost identical selection of works under the same title starting at the end of the year.
Who was Helen Frankenthaler?
She was born in New York in 1928 into a liberal Jewish upper-middle-class family. Her father, Alfred Frankenthaler, served as a judge on the New York State Supreme Court; her mother, a Löwenstein by birth, had come to the United States from Germany with her family as a young child. The family lived on the elegant Upper East Side, and Helen was able to study, as were her two sisters.
She first graduated from a so-called prep school for wealthy children in New York, the Dalton School, and then attended Bennington College in Vermont, where she studied painting. She continued painting after graduation with private lessons, including from Hans Hofmann. In Krems, one can see a very early work by the young artist, obviously in the tradition of Pablo Picasso and George Braque.
But then she turned to other models and currents. It was above all Jackson Pollock who influenced her with his large-format abstract drip paintings; she visited him repeatedly in his studio. And she was already represented in the spring of 1951 at a major exhibition, the 9th St. Exhibition of Paintings and Sculpture, which is considered the founding exhibition of New York abstract expressionism and which consisted of 61 male artists and only eleven female artists. For the 23-year-old, it was a significant step to be able to be there, alongside Lee Krasner, the wife of Jackson Pollock, for example.
At the time, she was also finding her style. Curator Steininger explains: "In 1952, Frankenthaler created her revolutionary, large-format soak stain paintings. For these, she spreads untreated canvases on the floor and then applies diluted oil paint with a variety of tools: poured directly from paint cans, with brushes, sponges, mops or other means." In doing so, she also moves directly into the painting, thus already coming close to action painting.
Oil painting with charcoal strokes. One of her most famous works dates from 1952: the oil painting with charcoal strokes Mountains and Sea in pastel colors. It shows neither concrete mountains nor the sea and fascinates thanks to its powerful dynamics. In 1955, the first work by Frankenthaler was purchased by the Museum of Modern Art.
Privately, she was involved with the well-known art critic Clement Greenberg during those years; he was considered a specialist among the abstract expressionists. After their separation, she married the painter Robert Motherwell; the couple divorced in the early 1970s.
Frankenthaler, who died in 2011, remained true to her basic painting style, but repeatedly changed her perspectives and emphases. For example, one finds a phase of strictly horizontally structured abstract paintings that nevertheless recall landscapes. "She has said that she also plays with chance, she experiments on paper, and then later translates that into large paintings," Steininger explains.
To his regret, he never met her in person, "but you know she was a strong personality, very self-confident." The emotionally presented works by Helen Frankenthaler are complemented by a black-and-white photo series by the Vienna-born Magnum photographer Ernst Haas, who was allowed to accompany her while she was at work in her studio in 1969. The height of tension, then thoughtfulness, and finally physical commitment when bending over large canvases-all this is freshly transported through decades into today and brought back to artistic life [by the exhibition].
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