Chaplock, Sharon K.

English

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Marquette Universitye-Publications@MarquetteCollege of Education Faculty Research andPublications Education, College of1-1-2006Helen Frankenthaler, Untitled, 1991Sharon K. ChaplockMarquette UniversityPublished version. "Helen Frankenthaler, Untitled, 1991," in Perspectives on Art at the HaggertyMuseum. Milwaukee, WI: Haggerty Museum of Art, 2006: 52-53. Publisher link. © 2006 HaggertyMuseum of Art, Marquette University. Used with permission.52Helen FrankenthalerAmerican (b. 1928)Untitled, 1991Monotype38 x 25 in.Gifts of the Sybiel B. Berkman Foundation, 2000.24.353Helen Frankenthaler was born in New York City on December 12, 1928, to New York Supreme Court Justice Alfred Frankenthaler and his wife Martha.  She graduated from Bennington College in 1949 and quickly established herself as an artist and teacher. Early on, Frankenthaler created compositions on large, often unstretched and unprimed canvases by experimenting with stain painting – a technique of applying oil paints thinned with solvents. Describing herself as “an artist of paint, making discoveries” (Carmean, 1998, p. 7), Frankenthaler’s work advanced the Color Field School of painting by influencing other artists such as Kenneth Noland and Morris Louis with an early painting, Mountains and Sea, 1952.  As a second generation Abstract Expressionist, Helen Frankenthaler creates landscapes of inspired fields of color, tonality and gestured forms.  Other work in the Haggerty Museum’s collection by the artist includes Tout à Coup, 1987, a two-color etching, aquatint, and drypoint in orange and red, and two lithographs: Composition and Yellow Jack, 1987. The collection represents gifts from the Sybiel B. Berkman Foundation.Untitled, 1991 gives no hint of what Frankenthaler had in mind in the title. We are left to wander in the abstract forms and challenge ourselves to trust our instincts. Its shapes and soothing colors layered over suggestions of engraved lines – or are they tree trunk rings - charmed and invited me to…..Enter -A waterfall of light inMoiré patterned tiersThrough drapes of weighty taupe,Pouring pools of luminescence -Into -Fresh quenching Nova Scotia bluesIn hues of green and turquoiseUnderlaid and waved.Glints of white dance over thewatery suggestionmarking the turbulent froth.Primeval luminosity,Grounded in verdant swells,Stained with the lifeblood of forest flowers,Attend a lyric meditation. Sharon Kayne Chaplock Director Admissions, FIPSE

Helen Frankenthaler, Untitled, 1991

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Helen Frankenthaler, Untitled, 1991

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