An interdisciplinary conversation on the common ground between painters, poets, and musicians who lived and worked in New York City, south of 14th Street, during the 1950s.

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In conjunction with a new year-long display of her work at Tate Modern, this panel discussion explored Frankenthaler’s life, work and legacy. The discussion was chaired by Mark Godfrey, Senior Curator of International Art at Tate Modern.

A display of Helen Frankenthaler’s work is on view at Tate Modern through November 15, 2020. Works lent by the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, New York.

Image: Helen Frankenthaler, Vessel, 1961, oil on canvas, 100 x 94 inches, collection Tate, London © 2021 Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, Inc. / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York, Photograph by Jordan Tinker, courtesy Helen Frankenthaler Foundation

Conversations among artists and art historians on the continuing influence, interest, and impact of mid-twentieth century abstraction. 

Image: 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

A talk about Helen Frankenthaler by Avis Berman, in conjunction with the exhibition Abstract Climates: Helen Frankenthaler in Provincetown. Berman is a writer, curator, and historian of American art, architecture, and culture.

Image: Provincetown Window, 1963-64. Acrylic on canvas, 82 3/8 x 81 7/8 inches. Collection of Josh and Beth Friedman. © 2021 Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, Inc. / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

In conjunction with the exhibition Abstract Climates: Helen Frankenthaler in Provincetown, art historian Alexander Nemerov, who is the Carl and Marilynn Thoma Provostial Professor in the Arts and Humanities as well as Chair of the Department of Art and Art History at Stanford University, joins Clifford Ross, multi-media artist, and Chairman of the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, in a conversation about Helen Frankenthaler.

Image: Indian Summer, 1967. Acrylic on canvas, 93 ½ x 93 5/8 inches. Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. Gift of Joseph H. Hirshhorn, 1972. © 2021 Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, Inc. / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. 

In conjunction with the exhibition Helen Frankenthaler Prints: Seven Types of Ambiguity, Carol Armstrong, Professor of the History of Art at Yale University, explored the artist’s accomplishments in prints. 

Image: Weeping Crabapple, 2009

Thirty-one color woodcut from 18 woodblocks

25 1/4 x 37 1/4 inches (64.13 x 94.61 cm)

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

Gagosian senior curator John Elderfield and director Jason Ysenburg led a tour of the exhibition Helen Frankenthaler: Sea Change: A Decade of Paintings, 1974–1983 at Gagosian, Rome.

Elderfield and Ysenburg explored the important period in Frankenthaler’s work that began in the summer of 1974, which was sparked by the changing appearance of the wide vistas and moving tides of the Long Island Sound. The show coincided with an exhibition of her work at the Museo di Palazzo Grimani in Venice on the occasion of the 58th Venice Biennale.

Artwork © 2021 Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, Inc./Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Douglas Dreishpoon, Director of the Helen Frankenthaler Catalogue Raisonné and Michael Brenson, author of the forthcoming David Smith biography, discussed Frankenthaler and Smith’s fifteen-year friendship, from 1950 to 1965.

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Image: Helen Frankenthaler with David Smith at Frankenthaler’s West End Avenue apartment, 1956, in front of Mountains and Sea, 1952, oil and charcoal on unsized, unprimed canvas, 86 3⁄8 × 117 1⁄4 in. © 2021 Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, Inc. / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo © Burt Glinn / Magnum Photos