Helen Frankenthaler (1928–2011)

Elberta, 1975
acrylic on canvas, 200.7 x 246.4 cm

Helen Frankenthaler (1928–2011) was an American abstract expressionist painter, celebrated as one of the great artists of the twentieth century. Her career spanned six decades, and she played a pivotal role in the transition from Abstract Expressionism to Color Field painting. Notably, her work “Mountains and Sea” (1952) employed a technique called Soak Stain, which had the effect of watercolor despite being painted in oils. This technique, also used by artists like Pollock, Morris Louis, and Kenneth Noland, influenced the new generation of Color Field artists by removing emotional, mythical, or religious content from their works12.