Helen Frankenthaler belongs to the record of art as a figure whose work outlasted the taste that first received it.
The record lists Helen Frankenthaler as American painter (1928–2011).
Helen Frankenthaler was born at New York City in 1928. Her recorded nationality is United States. She trained at Art Students League of New York and Bennington College.
Twentieth-century art was international, heavily theorised and increasingly conceptual, with the market growing alongside it.
She worked as printmaker, lithographer and painter.
Her recorded movement is abstract expressionism and color field.
Her best-known work is Mountains and Sea. Art history is a record of what got kept, which is not the same as what was best.
Recognition followed: National Medal of Arts.
That the work was made in United States shaped it: artistic traditions, academies and the galleries that decide what is seen have never been evenly distributed.
Helen Frankenthaler died in 2011, aged 83. The work remains, hanging in collections that outlived both the artist and the market that first priced it.
Achievements
- National Medal of Arts
- Notable work: Mountains and Sea
- Movement: abstract expressionism and Color Field
