Helen Frankenthaler

"Helen Frankenthaler (1928- ) was born in New York City. Although formally trained in Cubism, she developed her own personal form of abstract expressionism. Around 1951, when she became interested in Pollock's work, she began experimenting with abstract color field combinations moving from small areas of color in oil to large areas in acrylic. Her paintings are usually executed on unprimed and unstretched canvases that allow the paint to soak into the fabric. In the summer of 1950, Helen Frankenthaler came to Black Mountain College to visit Clement Greenberg, who was teaching art criticism. Though she was only at the College for a few days, it was during this time that she met Kenneth Noland. Noland in later years was greatly influenced by Frankenthaler’s approach to color field painting.
For many years Frankenthaler executed stained canvases that seem nonrepresentational, but which are actually based on real or imaginary landscapes. During the summers, she worked in Provincetown, Massachusetts and in the mid-1970s she bought a second home and studio in Connecticut. In addition to her two-dimensional work, she produced welded steel sculptures; she has also explored ceramics, prints, and illustrated books, and in 1985 she designed the sets and costumes for a production by England's Royal Ballet. She has taught at New York University, Harvard, Princeton, and Yale and has had numerous one-woman exhibitions of her work, including important retrospectives at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1969 and New York's Museum of Modern Art in 1989. Frankenthaler has won many awards and has been the subject of a documentary film. ""Summer of Apollo in Provincetown, Mass"" was done in Provincetown, MA in 1969.

As indicated above the location and the year are significant in Frankenthaler’s career. Frankenthaler has received many awards for her work, including an Art Institute of Chicago award, First Prize in the Biennale de Paris, and the Garrett Award. She has taught at New York University, the University of Pennsylvania, Yale University, the School of Visual Arts, Hunter College, the University of Rochester, Bennington College, Brooklyn Museum School, Swarthmore College, and Drew University. Her work is in the permanent collection of numerous museums worldwide, including the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Whitney Museum of American Art. She lived in New York City most of her life." [Source: unknown and currently being researched]