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Helen Frankenthaler Quotes (1928-2011)
Artist, Painter
About Helen Frankenthaler
Helen Frankenthaler (12 December 1928 β 28 December 2011) was an American post-painterly abstraction artist. Born in New York City, her work was influenced by Jackson Pollock, with whom she also was involved in the 1946β1960 abstract art movement.
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Helen Frankenthaler on Abstract art 3 quotes
βThe gesture today [c. 1965 in America] is surely more purely abstract than it was. There is a certain moment when one can look so pure that the result is emptiness β many readings of a work of art are eliminated and you are left with one note that may be real and pure but itβs only that, one shaft. For example, the best Mondrian's, Newman's, Noland's, or Louis Morris' are deep and beautiful and get better and better. But I think that many of the camp followers are empty.β
What Helen Frankenthaler Said About Others
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Helen Frankenthaler on Hans Hofmann 2 quotes
βWalking into his home was like walking into one of his paintings; the floor was kelly green, the furniture painted in yellows, reds, pink, white etc. Fresh fruit and flowers, perhaps a wicker rocker. Always a joy.β
Helen Frankenthaler on Willem de Kooning 2 quotes
βI've always thought that with de Kooning you could assimilate and copy. And that Pollock instead opened up what one's own inventiveness could take off from. In other words, given one's own talent for curiosity that you could explore, originate, discover from Pollock as one might, say, Picasso, or [Arshile] Gorky or [Wassily] Kandinsky in a way that de Kooning was a closed oeuvre.β
Helen Frankenthaler on Wassily Kandinsky
βTotal abstraction was something intellectual to me. I didn't feel it.. ..I would go to the old Guggenheim [museum] to look at Kandinsky. I liked the early abstractions [in his Murneau period] but the later ones I didn't like at all.β
Helen Frankenthaler on Kenneth Noland
βI think all totally abstract pictures β the best ones that really come off β Newman, Pollock, Kenneth Noland β have tremendous space; perspective space despite the emphasis on flat surface. For example, in Noland a band of yellow in relation to a band of blue and one of orange can move in depth although they are married to the surface. This has become a familiar explanation, but few people really see and feel it that way..β
Quotes About Helen Frankenthaler
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Quote of Kenneth Noland on Helen Frankenthaler
βWe [ Morris Louis and Kenneth Noland ] were interested in Pollock but could gain no lead from him. He was too personal. But Frankenthaler showed us a way β a way to think about and use, color.β
Robert Motherwell on Helen Frankenthaler
β..An artistic personality and a life personality often have no connection. In Helen's case, the controlling part of her is not part of the artistic personality. Her lyricism as an artist comes from a great personal inner liberation.β
Clement Greenberg on Helen Frankenthaler
βWhen I first met Helen [1950-51], she was a standard Cubist just out of college. Abstract Expressionism changed her direction.β
Kenneth Noland on Helen Frankenthaler
βHelen [Frankenthaler] was away for the weekend [in May 1952 or 1953], but Clem had the key to her studio and let us [Kenneth] Noland and Morris Louis ] in on a Sunday morning. We saw not just 'Mountains and Sea' but a group of pictures she had recently made. We felt exhilarated. The idea of being able to spread color out along the surface of the picture without having it create an illusion - this was very appealing to us.β
Quote by on Helen Frankenthaler
βCritics have not unanimously praised Ms. Frankenthaler's art. Some have seen it as thin in substance, uncontrolled in method, too sweet in color and too 'poetic.' But it has been far more apt to garner admirers like the critic Barbara Rose, who wrote in 1972 of Ms. Frankenthaler's gift for 'the freedom, spontaneity, openness and complexity of an image, not exclusively of the studio or the mind, but explicitly and intimately tied to nature and human emotions.'β
About Helen Frankenthaler
Helen Frankenthaler (12 December 1928 β 28 December 2011) was an American post-painterly abstraction artist. Born in New York City, her work was influenced by Jackson Pollock, with whom she also was involved in the 1946β1960 abstract art movement.