Helen Frankenthaler Foundation

Exhibitions

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Helen Frankenthaler
Harvest II, 1975
Acrylic on canvas
100 x 69 in. (254 x 175.3 cm)

Tracing Lineage: Abstraction and its Aftermath

Bruce Museum

Greenwich, CT
November 18, 2023 – March 17, 2024

From its heyday in the 1940s and ’50s, abstract art gained momentum in the postwar United States and remains a touchstone for artists working today. Tracing Lineage: Abstraction and its Aftermath addresses key art-historical movements, including Abstract Expressionism and its various permutations—from Action Painting and Color Field to Minimalism and Postminimalism—while also showcasing work by contemporary artists whose investigations of color, form, and material elucidate the ongoing legacies of painterly abstraction.

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Helen Frankenthaler

Vessel, 1961

Oil on unsized, unprimed canvas

100 x 94 in.

Tate. Presented by the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation

(Tate Americas Foundation), 2019.

Action, Gesture, Paint: Women Artists and Global Abstraction 1940-70

Kunsthalle Bielefeld

Bielfeld, Germany
December 2, 2023 – March 3, 2024

This major exhibition of 130 paintings from an overlooked generation of 70 international women artists arrives at its third venue following the Whitechapel Gallery in London and Fondation Vincent Van Gogh Arles, France. Reaching beyond the predominantly white, male painters whose names are synonymous with the Abstract Expressionist movement, this exhibition celebrates the practices of the numerous international women artists working with gestural abstraction in the aftermath of the Second World War.

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Helen Frankenthaler
Shippan October, 1981
Acrylic on canvas
47 1/4 x 136 in. (120 x 345.4 cm)
 

Connecticut Modern: Art, Design, and the Avant-Garde, 1930–1960

Bruce Museum

Greenwich, CT
September 23, 2023 – January 7, 2024

Connecticut Modern aims to highlight the state's role in the history of 20th century modernism as an important site of contemporary art making. The exhibition draws together many artists and collectors who lived and worked in Connecticut in the 1930s and 1940s. Helen Frankenthaler's Shippan October will be on loan from the Foundation.

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Helen Frankenthaler

Bistre I, 1976

Acrylic on canvas

101″ H × 24 ½″ W

(256.54 x 62.23 cm)

Kikuo Saito and Friends: New York City Downtown and Beyond, 1970s and 1980s

KinoSaito Arts Center

Verplanck, New York
May 12 — December 17, 2023

This exhibition features artwork by Saito and the close circle of artists that he was associated with for over 20 years, including Helen Frankenthaler.  The Foundation's loan of Bistre I, painted during the period when Saito worked as a studio assistance for Frankenthaler, is included. 

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Helen Frankenthaler

Overture, 1992

Acrylic on canvas

70 x 94 in. (177.8 x 238.8 cm)

L'île intérieure (The Inner Island)

Fondation Carmignac

Villa Carmignac, Porquerolles Island
April 29 – November 4, 2023

With more than 80 works by 50 artists, this exhibition explores the idea of inner landscapes and interior worlds—a concept inspired by the island setting of the Villa Carmignac. The Foundation’s loan of Frankenthaler’s painting Overture will be included.

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Helen Frankenthaler

Vessel, 1961

oil on unsized, unprimed canvas

100 x 94 in.

Tate. Presented by the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation

(Tate Americas Foundation), 2019.

Action, Gesture, Paint: Women Artists and Global Abstraction (1940–70))

Fondation Vincent van Gogh Arles

Arles, France
June 3 — October 22, 2023

The Fondation Vincent van Gogh Arles presents a major exhibition of 130 paintings from an overlooked generation of 70 international women artists. Reaching beyond the predominantly white, male painters whose names are synonymous with the Abstract Expressionist movement, this exhibition celebrates the practices of the numerous international women artists working with gestural abstraction in the aftermath of the Second World War.

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Helen Frankenthaler
Cloudscape, 1950
Oil, sand, and coffee grounds on canvas
17 1/2 x 38 in. (44.5 x 96.5 cm)

Creative Exchanges: Artists in Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner's Address Books

Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center

East Hampton, NY
May 4, 2023 – July 30, 2023

Creative Exchanges focuses on three surviving address books kept by Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner. The books themselves will be on view alongside more than twenty works by artists whose names, addresses, and telephone numbers appear in them, including Helen Frankenthaler.  The Foundation's loan of Frankenthaler's early painting Cloudscape, 1950, is included.

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Helen Frankenthaler

Beach Scene, 1961

oil and crayon on canvas

122 1/8 x 93 5/8 in. (310.2 x 237.8 cm)

The Shape of Freedom

Munch Museum

Oslo, Norway
February 23, 2023 — May 21, 2023

The Shape of Freedom examines the creative interplay between Abstract Expressionism and Art Informel in transatlantic exchange and dialogue, from the mid-1940s to the end of the Cold War. It includes more than ninety works by around fifty artists, amongst them Sam Francis, Helen Frankenthaler, Lee Krasner, Joan Mitchell, Ernst Wilhelm Nay, Barnett Newman, Jackson Pollock, Georges Mathieu, Mark Rothko, Hedda Sterne and Clyfford Still. This exhibition was previously presented at the Albertina Modern in Vienna and the Museum Barberini in Potsdam, Germany.

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Helen Frankenthaler
Break-Through, 1956
oil on sized, primed linen
36 x 42 in. (91.4 x 106.7 cm)

Art, Music & Feminism in the 1950s

Kalamazoo Institute of Arts

Kalamazoo, MI
January 21 – May 07, 2023

Featuring works from the museum's collection in addition to loans from public and private collections, Art, Music & Feminism in the 1950s brings together a diverse collection of works produced by women of the era. This group exhibition explores how these artists played a pivotal role in opening new pathways for women in subsequent decades. The Foundation’s loan of Frankenthaler’s painting Break-through is included.

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Helen Frankenthaler

Western Roadmap, 1991

Acrylic on canvas

58 × 104 inches (147.3 × 264.2 cm)

Drawing Within Nature: Paintings from the 1990s

Gagosian New York

New York, NY
March 9, 2023 – April 22, 2023

This exhibition features twelve paintings and three large-scale works on paper by Helen Frankenthaler dating from 1990 through 1995. Several works on canvas and paper, on loan from the Frankenthaler Foundation's collection, are included. This will be the first time in almost two decades that a group of the artist’s paintings from this era have been presented in New York, with some that have never previously been exhibited. 

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Helen Frankenthaler

Grotto Azura, 1963

oil on paper

23 x 29 in. (58.4 x 73.7 cm)

Helen Frankenthaler: Painterly Constellations

Museum Folkwang

Essen, Germany
December 2, 2022 — March 5, 2023

For the first time in more than 20 years in Germany, the Museum Folkwang is showcasing the powerful oeuvre of Helen Frankenthaler, known as a trailblazer for her role in the transition from Abstract Expressionism to Color Field Painting. Focusing on Frankenthaler's works on paper, the exhibition was previously presented at the Kunshalle Krems in Austria.

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Helen Frankenthaler

Deep Sun, 1983

twenty-two color etching, soft-ground etching, aquatint, spitbite aquatint, drypoint, engraving and mezzotint

30 x 40 1/2 in. (76.2 x 102.87 cm)

Helen Frankenthaler and Jo Sandman: Without Limits

Bowdoin College Museum of Art

Brunswick, ME
September 15, 2022 — March 12, 2023

This exhibition explores what can be learned by juxtaposing the work of two pioneering artists: Helen Frankenthaler and Jo Sandman (b. 1931). Frankenthaler, the elder artist, is more closely identified with image-making, and Sandman, the younger, with process and conceptualism. This exhibition highlights 10 prints and 8 proofs by Frankenthaler that were gifted to the museum through the Frankenthaler Prints Initiative for university-affiliated museums.

 

View Opening Lecture

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Helen Frankenthaler

Janus, 1990

acrylic on canvas

57 x 94 3/4 in. (144.8 x 240.7 cm)

Helen Frankenthaler: Late Works, 1990–2003

Artis–Naples, The Baker Museum

Naples, FL
September 6, 2022 — February 5, 2023

During the 1990s, Frankenthaler naturally transitioned from tackling canvases on the floor to using larger sheets of paper laid out on the floor or tabletops for easier accessibility. The continuity between the late work and what came before is striking—the fruits of an intuitive journey graced by mood, imagination, and technical facility. This exhibition, organized by Douglas Dreishpoon, was previously presented at New Britain Museum of American Art, the Weatherspoon Art Museum, and the Palm Springs Art Museum. A publication documenting Frankenthaler’s late period, with essays by Dreishpoon and Suzanne Boorsch, and a roundtable conversation with Katharina Grosse, Pepe Karmel, and Mary Weatherford, has been recently published by Radius Books.

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Helen Frankenthaler

Blue Bellows, 1976

acrylic on canvas

115 1/4 x 94 in. (292.7 x 238.8 cm)

Ways of Freedom: Jackson Pollock to Maria Lassnig

Albertina Modern, Vienna

October 15, 2022 — January 22, 2023

Albertina Modern's autumn exhibition is dedicated to the abstract expressionism of the New York School. After 1945, hard-edge painting and color field painting celebrated a brilliant triumph in Europe and reestablished art’s freedom following the end of the Second World War. The exhibition includes over 100 artworks by international artists and examines the creative interplay between abstract expressionism and informalism in the context of transatlantic dialog from the mid-1940s to the end of the Cold War. 

A version of this exhibition was presented at the Museum Barberini in 2022, the show will travel to a third venue, the Munch Museum in Oslo, Norway in 2023.

 

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Helen Frankenthaler

Focus on Mars, 1976

acrylic on canvas

46 x 114 in. (116.8 x 289.6 cm)

Monochrome Multitudes

Smart Museum of Art, the University of Chicago

Chicago, IL
September 22, 2022 — January 8, 2023

This exhibition traces “the monochrome” as a fundamental if surprisingly expansive artistic practice. Revisiting classic modernist ideas about flatness, idealized form, and colors, Monochrome Multitudes opens up this seemingly reductive art to reveal its global resonance and creative possibilities while working toward a more expansive narrative of 20th and 21st century art.

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Helen Frankenthaler

Shatter, 1953

oil on unsized, unprimed canvas

48 ½ x 54 in. (123.2 x 137.2 cm)

Shatter: Color Field and the Women of Abstract Expressionism

Art Intelligence Global

Hong Kong
October 3 — December 2, 2022

This group show spotlights five female artists whose pioneering explorations of color greatly expanded the frontiers of Abstract Expressionism. The first of its kind in Asia, the exhibition showcases important works by key women who experimented, probed, and eventually triumphed in launching abstract painting beyond what had been established by the male-dominated New York School. The show takes its title from Helen Frankenthaler’s Shatter (1953), lent by the Foundation.

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Helen Frankenthaler

Santa Fe XIII, 1990

acrylic on paper

29 1/2 x 41 1/4 in. (74.9 x 104.8 cm)

Helen Frankenthaler: Painterly Constellations

Kunsthalle Krems

Krems an der Donau, Austria
April 23 — October 30, 2022

The exhibition Helen Frankenthaler: Painterly Constellations features 74 works on paper alongside a selection of paintings from the individual phases in Frankenthaler’s artistic career. Frankenthaler’s work has rarely been shown extensively in German-speaking countries. The exhibition at Kunsthalle Krems is the artist's first monographic show in Austria and is co-organized with the Museum Folkwang in Essen, Germany, which is dedicating a show to the artist under the same title from December 2, 2022 to March 5, 2023.

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Helen Frankenthaler

Beach Scene, 1961

oil and crayon on canvas

122 1/8 x 93 5/8 in. (310.2 x 237.8 cm)

The Shape of Freedom: International Abstraction after 1945

Museum Barberini

Potsdam, Germany
June 4 — September 25, 2022

The Shape of Freedom examines the creative interplay between Abstract Expressionism and Art Informel in transatlantic exchange and dialogue, from the mid-1940s to the end of the Cold War. It includes more than ninety works by around fifty artists, amongst them Sam Francis, Helen Frankenthaler, K. O. Götz, Lee Krasner, Georges Mathieu, Joan Mitchell, Ernst-Wilhelm Nay, Barnett Newman, Jackson Pollock, Judit Reigl, Mark Rothko, and Clyfford Still.

This exhibition will travel to the Albertina Modern, Vienna in October, 2022 as well as to the Munch Museum in Oslo, Norway in 2023.

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Helen Frankenthaler

Un Poco Más, 1987

lithograph

27 1/4 x 37 in. (69 x 94 cm)

© 2023 Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, Inc. / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / Ediciones Polígrafa, S.A., Barcelona

Helen Frankenthaler: Un Poco Más (A Little More)

Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University

Durham, NC
February 12, 2022 — August 28, 2022

This Frankenthaler Prints Initiative exhibition champions the significance of printmaking within Frankenthaler’s artistic practice. It explores the cooperative, exploratory process through which the artist worked and highlights the six proofs and final edition print of Un Poco Más (1987), completed during a period of time the artist spent in Barcelona, Spain. 

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Helen Frankenthaler

Round Robin, 2000

twenty-nine color etching aquatint and mezzotint
© 2023 Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, Inc. / Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY / Tyler Graphics Ltd., Mount Kisco, NY

The Lyrical Moment: Modern and Contemporary Abstraction by Helen Frankenthaler and Heather Gwen Martin

Contemporary Art Museum, University of South Florida

Tampa, FL
June 17 — July 30, 2022

Taking as a starting point a gift from the Foundation's Frankenthaler Prints Initiative to USFCAM, the museum has organized an exhibition that features elegant, hand-processed paintings and prints by pioneering artist Helen Frankenthaler and digitally-informed, pop-inflected canvases and works on paper by contemporary Los Angeles painter Heather Gwen Martin. The exhibition brings together the work of two important women artists from two different generations.

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Helen Frankenthaler, Madame Butterfly, 2000, one hundred two color woodcut from 46 woodblocks, 41 3/4 x 79 1/2 inches  (106 x 201.9 cm) © 2023 Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, Inc. / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / Tyler Graphics Ltd., Mount Kisco, New York

Helen Frankenthaler: Radical Beauty

Dulwich Picture Gallery

London, UK
September 15, 2021 — April 18, 2022

Named "best exhibition of the year in London" by The Guardian and "a revelation" by The Evening Standard, this exhibition shines a light on the artist’s groundbreaking woodcuts, which appear painterly and spontaneous with expanses of color and fluid forms. The exhibition reveals Frankenthaler as a trailblazer of the printmaking movement, who endlessly pushed possibilities through her experimentation.

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Helen Frankenthaler

Vessel, 1961

oil on unsized, unprimed canvas

100 x 94 in.

Tate. Presented by the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation

(Tate Americas Foundation), 2019.

In the Studio (Room 8): Helen Frankenthaler

Tate Modern

London, UK
November 18, 2019 — November 28, 2021

This room of five paintings spanning 1951-1977 includes loans from the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation's collection and a work recently gifted to the Tate by the Foundation.

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Helen Frankenthaler

Open Wall, 1953

oil on unsized, unprimed canvas

53 3/4 x 131 in.

Women in Abstraction

Guggenheim Bilbao Museum

Bilbao, Spain
October 22, 2021 — February 27, 2022

Initially presented at Centre Pompidou in Paris, this exhibition traces a lesser-told history of art primarily from the 20th and 21st centuries by focusing on the contribution of women artists to abstraction. It includes over 100 artists working across disciplines. The loan of two major paintings by Helen Frankenthaler from the Foundation’s collection are on view.

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Helen Frankenthaler

Untitled, 1958

oil on canvas

78 1/2 x 82 1/2 in. (199.4 x 209.6 cm)

Imagining Landscapes: Paintings by Helen Frankenthaler, 1952–1976

Gagosian Grosvenor Hill, London

London, UK
June 17–September 18, 2021

This exhibition features thirteen paintings several of which have never been exhibited before. The references to landscape that are inherent in these paintings shift between subtle and explicit, as critic E. C. Goossen observed in 1958. All are characterized by an extraordinary variety of line and color. 

 

Read a recent review of the show from the Gaurdian.

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Helen Frankenthaler

Heart of London Map, 1972

steel, 87 x 82 1/2 x 25 in.

Helen Frankenthaler: A Sculpture and a Selection of Works on Paper

Gagosian Davies Street, London

London, UK
June 17–August 27, 2021

This exhibition features features a selection of works on paper by Frankenthaler as well as a sculpture by the artist, made during a stint in the London studio of Anthony Caro in July, 1972. As Lauren Mahony notes in “Helen Frankenthaler: A Painter’s Sculptures,” "Frankenthaler worked steadily over a two-week period and took inspiration from her immediate surroundings, a direct and spontaneous approach akin to how she painted. Even as a self-described novice, her choices revealed her confidence and her eye."

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Helen Frankenthaler

Contentment Island, 2002

acrylic on paper

74 1/8 x 60 1/8 in. (188.3 x 152.7 cm) 

Helen Frankenthaler Late Works, 1990–2003

Palm Springs Art Museum

Palm Springs, CA
October 14, 2021 — February 27, 2022

During the 1990s, Frankenthaler naturally transitioned from tackling canvases on the floor to using larger sheets of paper laid out on the floor or tabletops for easier accessibility. The continuity between the late work and what came before is striking—the fruits of an intuitive journey graced by mood, imagination, and technical facility. This exhibition, organized by Douglas Dreishpoon, was previously presented at New Britain Museum of American Art and the Weatherspoon Art Museum. The Palm Springs presentation includes an additional 10 paintings on canvas. A publication documenting Frankenthaler’s late period, with essays by Dreishpoon and Suzanne Boorsch, and a roundtable conversation with Katharina Grosse, Pepe Karmel, and Mary Weatherford, is forthcoming from Radius Books.

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Helen Frankenthaler

Japanese Maple, 2005

sixteen color woodcut from nine blocks on Torinoko paper

26 x 38 in.

Blanton Museum of Art, The University of Texas at Austin, Gift of the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, 2019

Without Limits: Helen Frankenthaler, Abstraction, and the Language of Print

Blanton Museum of Art, University of Texas

Austin, TX
September 4, 2021 — February 20, 2022

This exhibition highlights ten prints and six proofs by the artist that were gifted to the Blanton Museum through the Frankenthaler Prints Initiative. These works span five decades of Frankenthaler’s career. Her work is joined by that of other artists in the Blanton’s collection using the medium of print to capture and translate their own abstract visions.

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Helen Frankenthaler

Beginnings, 1994

acrylic on paper

78 ¾ x 77 ¾ in. 

Helen Frankenthaler: Late Works, 1990-2003

Weatherspoon Art Museum

Greensboro, NC
June 12, 2021 — August 28, 2021

During the 1990s, as Frankenthaler's practice continued to evolve through the use of diverse media and processes, she naturally transitioned from tackling canvases on the floor to using larger sheets of paper laid out on the floor or tabletops for easier accessibility. The continuity between the late work and what came before is striking—the fruits of an intuitive journey graced by mood, imagination, and technical facility. The exhibition, organized by Doug Dreishpoon, travels to the Weatherspoon from the New Britain Museum of American Art.

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Helen Frankenthaler

Solar Imp, 1995

acrylic on paper

78 x 59 3/4 in.

Helen Frankenthaler Late Works, 1990–2003

New Britain Museum of American Art

New Britain, CT
February 11, 2021 — May 23, 2021

New Britain Museum of American Art will debut the first museum presentation dedicated to the late work of Helen Frankenthaler. Curated by Douglas Dreishpoon, Director of the Helen Frankenthaler Catalogue Raisonné, it features 22 works on paper on loan from the Foundation and marks the first comprehensive opportunity to see the fruits of Frankenthaler’s late career in depth.

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Helen Frankenthaler

Geisha, 2003

twenty-three color woodcut from fifteen woodblocks

38 x 26 in. (96.5 x 66 cm)

© 2021 Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, Inc. / Artist Rights Society (ARS), New York / Pace Editions, Inc., New York. Photograph by Tim Pyle

Deliberate Risks: Prints by Helen Frankenthaler

SCAD Museum of Art

Savannah, GA
October 14, 2020 — July 11, 2021

Deliberate Risks presents works recently acquired for the SCAD Museum of Art Permanent Collection by the pioneering Modernist painter and printmaker Helen Frankenthaler. As part of the Helen Frankenthaler Prints Initiative, the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation gifted the SCAD Museum of Art 10 prints and four proofs from the 1960s through the early 2000s that exemplify the artist’s experimental approach to the medium. 

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Helen Frankenthaler

Geisha, 2003

twenty-three color woodcut from fifteen woodblocks

38 x 26 in. (96.5 x 66 cm)

© 2021 Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, Inc. / Artist Rights Society (ARS), New York / Pace Editions, Inc., New York. Photograph by Tim Pyle

At One Stroke: Prints by Helen Frankenthaler

Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts

Philadelphia, PA
January 31 – April 12, 2020

The Foundation gifted PAFA a group of prints and proofs as part of the Frankenthaler Prints Initiative for university-affiliated museums. These works are presented in an exhibition curated by the PAFA Youth Council.

 

In conjunction with the exhibition, Ruth Fine, a former curator at the National Gallery of Art, explored Helen Frankenthaler’s printmaking accomplishments in conversation with Judith Brodsky, founder of the Brodsky Center at PAFA. 

 

Listen

PAFA.org

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Helen Frankenthaler, Freefall, 1993, woodcut on paper © 2021 Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, Inc. / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / Tyler Graphics Ltd., Mount Kisco, New York

Frankenthaler on Paper

Arthur Ross Gallery, University of Pennsylvania

Philadelphia, PA
January 18 — March 29, 2020

This exhibition presents ten unique paintings on paper and fourteen prints that date from the 1970s to the 1990s. Lent by the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, these rarely seen paintings on paper reflect the artist's painterly process.

 

Take a virtual audio tour of the exhibition

 

 

 

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Helen Frankenthaler

Western Dream, 1957

oil on unsized, unprimed canvas

70 x 86 in. (177.8 x 218.4 cm)

Epic Abstraction: Pollock to Herrera

The Metropolitan Museum of Art

New York, NY
December 17, 2018 - February 4, 2020

The exhibition explores large-scale abstract painting, sculpture, and assemblage, from the 1940s to the twenty-first century, through works from The Met collection and special loans. The Foundation's loan of Western Dream, 1957, remains on view.

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Helen Frankenthaler, Provincetown I, 1961, oil on canvas, 92 3/4 x 101 1/4 inches (235.6 x 257.2 cm)

Abstract Climates: Helen Frankenthaler in Provincetown

Parrish Art Museum

Water Mill, NY
August 4 — October 27, 2019

The exhibition highlights Frankenthaler’s exploration of the relationship between landscape and abstraction through key examples of work the artist produced in Provincetown, MA during more than a decade of summers there.

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Helen Frankenthaler, Deep Sun, 1983, color intaglio, sheet: 30 x 40½ in. (76.2 x 102.9 cm) plate: 24 x 35½ in (61 x 90.2 cm) © 2021 Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, Inc. / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / Tyler Graphics, Ltd., Mount Kisco, New York

Helen Frankenthaler Prints: Seven Types of Ambiguity

Princeton University Art Museum

Princeton, NJ
June 29 — October 20, 2019

Spanning five decades and featuring approximately fifty works, the exhibition showcases the gift of ten prints and five related trial proofs from the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation to the Princeton University Art Museum. These works represent the continuous and generative role of printmaking in Frankenthaler’s oeuvre.

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Helen Frankenthaler, Open Wall, 1953. Oil on unsized, unprimed canvas, 53 3/4 x 131 inches.

Women in Abstraction

Centre Pompidou

Paris, France
May 19, 2021 – August 23, 2021  

Women in Abstraction aims to trace a lesser-told history of art primarily from the 20th and 21st centuries by focusing on the contribution of women artists to abstraction. The exhibition includes over 100 artists working across disciplines, Two loans of major paintings by Helen Frankenthaler from the Foundation’s collection are included.

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Helen Frankenthaler, Star Gazing, 1989, acrylic on canvas, 71 1/2 x 144 inches (181.6 x 365.8 cm).

Peindre la Nuit (Paint the Night)

Centre Pompidou Metz

Metz, France
October 13, 2018 — April 15, 2019

This group exhibition brings together historical figures and contemporary artists for whom the night and nighttime are an inspiration for their work. With painting as a focus, the show includes photography, video art, and installations, offering conceptual parallels to music and literature.

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Helen Frankenthaler (center) on gondola with (clockwise from bottom left) Lady Dufferin and Sheridan Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood, 5th Marquess of Dufferin and Ava, Jules Olitski, gondolier, Anthony Caro, John Kasmin, and Richard Smith, Venice, Italy, 1966 © Reg Lancaster/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

PITTURA/PANORAMA Paintings by Helen Frankenthaler, 1952–1992

Museo di Palazzo Grimani

Venice, Italy
May 7 — November 17, 2019

This exhibition is the first presentation of Helen Frankenthaler’s work in Venice since its appearance in 1966 at the American Pavilion of the 33rd Venice Biennale. Covering a forty-year span of Frankenthaler’s career from the early 1950s to her richly atmospheric canvases of the early 1990s, it features fourteen panoramic paintings, all from the collection of the Foundation.

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Helen Frankenthaler, Radius, 1993, nine-color woodcut, 28 1/2 x 28 1/2 inches (72.4 x 72.4 cm).

Helen Frankenthaler – Woodcuts: Prints and Proofs

KODE Art Museums and Composer Homes

Bergen, Norway
February 8 — April 21, 2019

This large-scale exhibition displays twenty-three of Helen Frankenthaler’s woodcuts ranging from her earliest, made in 1973, to her last, made in 2009, along with proofs and paintings on wood used in the making of several of the editions. This is the artist’s first solo show in Norway and the most comprehensive presentation of her woodcuts in Europe to date.

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Helen Frankenthaler, Cool Summer, 1962, oil on canvas, 69 3/4 x 120 inches (177.2 x 304.8 cm).

Abstract Climates: Helen Frankenthaler in Provincetown

Provincetown Art Association and Museum

Provincetown, MA
July 6 — September 2, 2018

Helen Frankenthaler spent more than a decade of summers living and working in Provincetown following her marriage to Robert Motherwell in 1958. This exhibition presents paintings she created there between 1950 and 1969. From intimately scaled works to large canvases that reference the sea and landscape of Provincetown, it offers a new perspective on this aspect of her oeuvre.

 

Organized by PAAM, the exhibition will travel in an expanded version to the Parrish Art Museum in Water Mill, New York, from August 4 – October 27, 2019.

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Helen Frankenthaler, First Stone, 1961, working proof 2, 5 color lithograph, 22 x 30 inches. © 2021 Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, Inc./Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / Universal Limited Art Editions, West Islip, New York.

Helen Frankenthaler Prints: The Romance of a New Medium

The Art Institute of Chicago

Chicago, IL
April 20 — September 3, 2018

This exhibition features over fifty of Frankenthaler’s prints from her two decade collaboration with Universal Limited Art Editions (ULAE), during which she produced images that reveal her enchantment with what she called “the romance of a new medium.” A comprehensive selection of lithographs, etchings, aquatints, woodcuts and never-before-displayed proofs illustrate the artist’s working method and demonstrate Frankenthaler’s unwavering passion for printmaking.

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Helen Frankenthaler, Milkwood Arcade, 1963, acrylic on canvas, 86 1/2 x 80 3/4 inches (219 x 203 cm).

The Water Lilies. American Abstract Art and the last Monet

Musée de l'Orangerie

Paris, France
April 13 — August 20, 2018

This group exhibition focuses on the precise moment when the works of Claude Monet were rediscovered and the New York School of Abstract Expressionism was first being recognized abroad. Included is a selection of some of Monet’s later works and around twenty major paintings by American artists including Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Philip Guston, and Helen Frankenthaler.

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Helen Frankenthaler, Grasses, 1992, acrylic on canvas, 45 1/2 x 83 1/2 inches, 115.6 x 212.1 cm (unframed)

Critical Dictionary. In Homage to G. Bataille

Gagosian Gallery

Paris, France
June 1 — July 28, 2018

The exhibition puts into question the hierarchies and chronologies of art history by grouping classical sculpture, postwar vanguard painting, and key contemporary works, by artists Louise Bourgeois, Joe Bradley, Alberto Burri, Dan Flavin, Helen Frankenthaler, Duane Hanson, Donald Judd, Wassily Kandinsky, Anish Kapoor, Rene Magritte, Paolo Schiavo, Guido Reni, Frank Stella, and Mary Weatherford as a chitcheri sakwa, a clan shrine made in Togo circa 1900, and a Roman sculpture from the second century.

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Helen Frankenthaler, Winter Figure with Black Overhead, 1959, oil on sized primed canvas, 84 x 53 inches, (213.4 x 134.6 cm).

Surface Work

Victoria Miro Gallery

London, UK
April 11 — May 19, 2018

This international, cross-generational exhibition is a celebration of women artists who have shaped and transformed, and continue to influence and expand, the language and definition of abstract painting. Works from the era of Abstract Expressionism will be represented by artists such as Helen Frankenthaler, Lee Krasner, Joan Mitchell and Hedda Sterne, alongside more recent works by artists ranging from Elizabeth Murray and Mary Heilmann to Rita Ackermann and Mary Weatherford. 

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Helen Frankenthaler, Snow Pines, 2004, thirty-four color woodcut from sixteen woodblocks on handmade paper.

Fluid Expressions: The Prints of Helen Frankenthaler

The Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center

Poughkeepsie, NY
October 6 — December 10, 2017

The exhibition was organized by the Jordan Schnitzer Family Foundation and highlights Frankenthaler’s powerfully evocative print production.

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Helen Frankenthaler, Milkwood Arcade, 1963, acrylic on canvas, 86 1/2 x 80 3/4 inches (219 x 203 cm).

As In Nature: Helen Frankenthaler Paintings

The Clark Art Institute

Williamstown, MA
July 1 — October 9, 2017

This exhibition comprises a selection of large paintings by Helen Frankenthaler, focusing on nature as a longstanding inspiration and including the full range of styles and techniques that she explored over five decades of work.

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Helen Frankenthaler, Freefall, 1993, hand-dyed paper in 15 colors and 12 color woodcut from 1 plate of 21 woodblocks, 78 1/2 x 60 1/2 inches (199.4 x 153.7 cm).

No Rules: Helen Frankenthaler Woodcuts

The Clark Art Institute

Williamstown, MA
July 1 — September 24, 2017

Throughout her career, Frankenthaler worked with a variety of print publishers to push the medium in new directions. No Rules features work executed over four decades and examines her inventive and groundbreaking approach to the woodcut.

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Helen Frankenthaler, The Red Sea, 1959, oil and charcoal on sized, primed canvas with painted wood frame, 69 5/8 × 68 1/2 inches (176.8 × 174 cm).

Helen Frankenthaler: After Abstract Expressionism, 1959– 1962

Gagosian Gallery

Paris, France
June 9 — September 16, 2017

The first major exhibition of Helen Frankenthaler’s work in Paris in more than fifty years, it includes paintings and works on paper, several of which have not been exhibited since the early 1960s.

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Helen Frankenthaler (1928–2011)
Spoleto, 1972, silkscreen.

Fluid Expressions: The Prints of Helen Frankenthaler

Amon Carter Museum of American Art

Fort Worth, TX
March 18 — September 10, 2017

Drawn from the collections of Jordan D. Schnitzer and his family foundation, this exhibition includes more than 25 prints made from a diverse range of techniques, including lithographs, etchings, aquatints, screen prints, and woodcuts.

 

Travels to: 

The Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, Poughkeepsie, NY

October 6 — December 10, 2017 

 

 

 

 

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Helen Frankenthaler, Trojan Gates, 1955, oil and enamel on canvas, 6' x 48 7/8" (182.9 x 124.1 cm).

Making Space: Women Artists and Postwar Abstraction

The Museum of Modern Art

New York, NY
April 15 — August 13, 2017

Making Space shines a spotlight on the stunning achievements of women artists between the end of World War II (1945) and the start of the Feminist movement (around 1968). 

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Helen Frankenthaler, Untitled, 2002, acrylic on paper 33 x 40 1/2 inches

Matisse and American Art

The Montclair Art Museum

Montclair, NJ
February 4 — June 18, 2017

This is the first exhibition to examine this French master’s profound impact upon the development of American modern art from 1907 to the present.

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Helen Frankenthaler, Europa, 1957, oil on unsized, unprimed canvas, 70 x 54 1/2 x 2 inches (177.8 x 138.43 x 5.08 cm)

Abstract Expressionism

Guggenheim Museum Bilbao

Bilbao, Spain
February 3 — June 4, 2017

Originated: Royal Academy of Arts

September 24, 2016 — January 2, 2017

 

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Helen Frankenthaler, Western Dream, 1957, oil on unsized, unprimed canvas, 70 x 86 inches (177.8 x 218.4 cm) © 2021 Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, Inc./Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

Women of Abstract Expressionism

Palm Springs Art Museum

Palm Springs, CA
February 18 — May 28, 2017

Organized by the Denver Art Museum, this important project brings together approximately 50 major works of art by twelve of the key women involved with the movement on both the East and West Coasts.

 

Traveled to:
The Mint Museum, Charlotte, NC
October 22, 2016 — January 22, 2017

 

Originated:

Denver Art Museum, CO
June 12 — September 25, 2016

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Helen Frankenthaler, Vessel, 1961, oil on canvas, 100 x 94 inches (254 x 239 cm). © 2021 Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, Inc./Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

Hartung and Lyrical Painters

Fonds Hélène & Édouard Leclerc pour la Culture

Landerneau, France
December 11, 2016 — April 17, 2017

The exhibition positions the work of Hans Hartung with artists of the 1950's such as Georges Mathieu, Gérard Schneider, Hantaï, and international artists from subsequent decades, including Helen Frankenthaler.

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Helen Frankenthaler, Lorelei, 1957, oil on untreated cotton duck, Frame: 75 x 91 7/8 x 2 1/2 in. (190.5 x 233.4 x 6.4 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Purchase gift of Allan D. Emil, 58.39 (Photo: Brooklyn Museum)

Postwar: Art between Pacific and Atlantic, 1945—1965

Haus Der Kunst

Munich, Germany
October 14, 2016 — March 26, 2017

For the first time in recent museum history, this exhibition examines the turbulent and eventful postwar period as a global phenomenon.

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Helen Frankenthaler, Europa, 1957, oil on unsized, unprimed canvas, 70 x 54 1/2 x 2 inches (177.8 x 138.43 x 5.08 cm) © 2021 Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, Inc./Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

Abstract Expressionism

Royal Academy of Arts

London, UK
September 24, 2016 — January 2, 2017

This long-awaited exhibition reveals the full breadth of a movement that will forever be associated with the boundless creative energy of 1950s New York.

 

Traveling to:
Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, Spain
February 03, 2017 — June 04, 2017

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Helen Frankenthaler, Grey Fireworks, 1982, acrylic on canvas, 72 × 118 1/2 inches (182.9 × 301 cm)

Line Into Color, Color Into Line: Helen Frankenthaler, Paintings, 1962—1987

Gagosian Gallery

Beverly Hills, CA
September 16 — October 29, 2016

The exhibition comprises eighteen canvases by Frankenthaler from a twenty-five year time span, selected to reveal how the renowned abstract painter articulated the relationship between drawing and color during this period.

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Helen Frankenthaler, Chalk Separates, 1971, acrylic on canvas, 105 1/16 x 82 1/16 inches (266.8 x 208.5 cm). Art Gallery of Ontario, Gift in memory of Alfred W. Rogers, 1979.

A New Look: 1960s and ’70s Abstract Painting at the AGO

Art Gallery of Ontario

Ontario, Canada
December 19, 2015 — March 17, 2016

American and Canadian artists of the 1960s and '70s changed the feel and appearance of abstract painting. They soaked pigment directly into the canvas, which enabled them to move beyond the thickly painted and dramatically brushed work of the previous generation. What resulted are two kinds of pictures: some with flowing, liquid colours and others with crisp, linear designs. Both types of painting are big and flat, and they seem to expand and contract optically with their active, vibrating surfaces.

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Helen Frankenthaler, East and Beyond, 1973, eight-color woodblock print on buff laminated Nepalese handmade paper Sheet: 31 3/4 × 21 in. (80.6 × 53.3 cm.) Image: 23 1/2 × 18 in. (59.7 × 45.7 cm.) Collection: Des Moines Art Center. © 2021 Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, Inc. / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Universal Limited Art Editions, West Islip, New York.

East and Beyond: Helen Frankenthaler and Her Contemporaries

Des Moines Art Center

Des Moines, IA
September 29, 2015 — January 17, 2016

In celebration of the acquisition of Helen Frankenthaler's breakthrough color woodblock print, East and Beyond, 1973, the Art Center presents an exhibition contextualizing Frankenthaler's print.

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Helen Frankenthaler, Hommage à M. L., 1962, oil on canvas, 61 3/4 x 82 7/8 in.

Pretty Raw: After and Around Helen Frankenthaler

The Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University

Waltham, MA
February 11 — June 7, 2015

Curated by Katy Siegel, Pretty Raw took the work of the artist Helen Frankenthaler (1928—2011) as the point of departure for an alternative version of modernist art over the past 50 years, a story usually written as a series of male masters. In this new history, decoration, humor, femininity and masculinity, the everyday, sensual pleasure, artifice and illusion, and authorial control took center stage, as artists from the 1950s through the present explore the personal, social, and political meanings of sheer, gorgeous materiality.

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Helen Frankenthaler, 21st Street Studio, 1950, oil on linen, 24 x 22 in.

In the Studio: Picturing the Artist’s Workplace: Early Variations; Modern Themes

Gagosian Gallery

New York, NY
February 17 — April 18, 2015

Curated by John Elderfield, Chief Curator Emeritus of Painting and Sculpture at The Museum of Modern Art, New York, “In the Studio: Paintings,” exhibited at 522 West 21st Street, spanned from the mid-sixteenth through the late twentieth centuries and included over 50 paintings and works on paper by nearly 40 artists.

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Installation view, Helen Frankenthaler, Europa, 1957, oil on unsized, unprimed canvas, 70 x 54 1/2 in.

The New York School, 1969: Henry Geldzahler at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Paul Kasmin Gallery

New York, NY
January 13 — March 14, 2015

New York Painting and Sculpture: 1940 — 1970 was the Metropolitan Museum's most exciting exhibition to date under the auspices of director Thomas Hoving, who turned Henry Geldzahler loose to price the art world to alertness.  Curated by Stewart Waltzer, this comprehensive group show reprised Geldzahler's seminal exhibition...

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Giving Up One’s Mark. Helen Frankenthaler in the 1960s and 1970s. Exhibition catalogue with essay by Douglas Dreishpoon. Buffalo, New York: Albright-Knox Art Gallery, 2014.

Giving Up One’s Mark, Helen Frankenthaler in the 1960s and 1970s

Albright-Knox Art Gallery

Buffalo, NY
November 9, 2014 — February 15, 2015

Organized by Chief Curator Emeritus Douglas Dreishpoon, this twenty-year survey explored how Frankenthaler’s notion of abstraction expanded during the decades, the extent to which landscape persisted as subject matter in her works, how subtle changes of techniques affected the way her images were conceived, and how drawing continued to inform the creative process.

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Helen Frankenthaler: Composing with Color: Paintings 1962-1963. Exhibition catalogue with essay by Elizabeth A. T. Smith. New York: Gagosian Gallery, 2014.

Helen Frankenthaler: Composing with Color: Paintings 1962–1963

Gagosian Gallery

New York, NY
September 11 — October 18, 2014

The exhibition focused on a brief but critical period in Frankenthaler's career during 1962—63, when she “composed with color” rather than with line, resulting in the freer compositions that came to exemplify her long and prolific career. Transitioning from the sparer, more graphic works of 1960—61, Frankenthaler made paintings that more readily filled the space of the canvas, moving toward what critic B. H. Friedman described as the “total color image” that would become a hallmark of her later work.

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Helen Frankenthaler with David Smith at Frankenthaler’s West End Avenue apartment, 1956 in front of Helen Frankenthaler’s Mountains and Sea, 1952. Oil and charcoal on unsized, unprimed canvas, 86 3⁄8 × 117 1⁄4 in. Photo by Burt Glinn, courtesy Magnum Photos

Helen Frankenthaler and David Smith

Craig F. Starr Gallery

New York, NY
June 6 — August 8, 2014

Helen Frankenthaler and David Smith celebrated the close friendship between two major American artists of the 20th century: Helen Frankenthaler (1925—2011) and David Smith (1906—1965).  The exhibition will featured ten works by Frankenthaler — one painting and nine works on paper — alongside three sculptures by Smith. 

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Installation view, left to right:

For E.M., 1981
Burnt Norton, 1972
Eastern Light, 1982

 

Making Painting: Helen Frankenthaler and JMW Turner

Turner Contemporary

Margate, UK
January 25 — May 11, 2014

Showcasing the work of the celebrated American Abstract Expressionist painter, Helen Frankenthaler, alongside paintings by JMW Turner from the nineteenth century, the exhibition included 24 paintings by Frankenthaler, whose last public gallery exhibition in the UK was at the Whitechapel in 1969.

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Painted on 21st Street. Helen Frankenthaler from 1950 to 1959. Exhibition catalogue with essays by John Elderfield, Frank O’Hara (originally published in An Exhibition of Oil Paintings by Frankenthaler, The Jewish Museum, 1960), and Carl Belz (originally published in Frankenthaler: The 1950s, Rose Art Museum, 1981). New York: Gagosian Gallery and Abrams, 2013.

Painted on 21st Street: Helen Frankenthaler from 1950 to 1959

Gagosian Gallery

New York, NY
March 8 — April 13, 2013

Painted on 21st Street: Helen Frankenthaler from 1950 to 1959 was curated by John Elderfield, Chief Curator Emeritus of Painting and Sculpture at The Museum of Modern Art, New York, and a consultant at Gagosian Gallery, who authored the principal monograph on Frankenthaler’s work in 1989.

All artwork unless otherwise noted © 2023 Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, Inc. / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York