What concerns me when I work is not whether the picture is a landscape, or whether it’s pastoral, or whether somebody will see a sunset in it. What concerns me is—did I make a beautiful picture? Helen Frankenthaler, 1989
Spanning the gap between 1950s Abstract Expressionism and 1960s Color Field painting, Helen Frankenthaler’s “soak-stain” technique was a monumental bridge for modern art. This technique involved diluting oil paint until it was fluid enough to pour onto raw canvas from a coffee can. In the lower-left corner, the “soak-stain” effect is visible, as one color competes and blends with its contiguous rival. The acrylic is so thinly applied to the canvas that the texture of the raw cotton beneath can be seen clearly.
Frankenthaler’s Adriatic was graciously donated by the artist to the Pasadena Art Museum in 1969.
Quote by Helen Frankenthaler © 2020 Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, Inc.
Details
- Artist Name: Helen Frankenthaler (American, 1928-2011)
- Title: Adriatic
- Date: 1968
- Medium: Acrylic on canvas
- Dimensions: 132-1/8 x 93 in. (335.6 x 236.2 cm)
- Credit Line: Norton Simon Museum, Gift of the Artist
- Accession Number: P.1969.138
- Copyright: © 2020 Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, Inc. / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Object Information
Pasadena Art Museum, Pasadena, 1969-1975;
Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena, 1975.
Helen Frankenthaler
- Whitney Museum of American Art, 1969-02-20 to 1969-04-06
Post 1950 Paintings
- Pasadena, Pasadena Art Museum, 1972-07-25 to 1972-09-03
Art and Marriage
- Riverside, University of California Riverside, Art Gallery, 1973-05-07 to 1973-05-31
Surface Truths: Abstract Painting in the Sixties
- Norton Simon Museum, 2011-03-25 to 2011-08-15
Loan to the permanent collection, Virginia Steele Scott Galleries at the Huntington_3
- The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens, 2011-08-22 to 2015-12-17
Color Fields
- Museum of Contemporary Art (Los Angeles, Calif.), 1996-11-24 to 1997-03-30
Loan to the permanent collection, Virginia Steele Scott Galleries at the Huntington_1
- The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens, 2009-05-27 to 2015-12-17
A Look at New York
- Pasadena Museum of Modern Art, 1973-06-12 to 1973-07-22
Permanent and Loan Collection, 1973
- Pasadena Museum of Modern Art, 1973-01-30 to 1973-12-31
American Art of the 1950s and 1960s from the Collection of the Norton Simon Museum
- Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1988-08-11 to 1994-04-03
The Chromatic Eye: New York Paintings and Prints from the 1960s
- Norton Simon Museum, 2001-07-20 to 2001-10-22
Permanent and Loan Collection, 1974
- Pasadena Museum of Modern Art, 1974-03-16 to 1974-06-06
Selections from the Permanent Collection
- Pasadena Art Museum, 1971-07-13 to 1971-09-19
Radical Past: Contemporary Art and Music in Pasadena, 1960-1974
- Norton Simon Museum, 1999-02-07 to 1999-06-06
- Armory Center for the Arts, 1999-02-07 to 1999-04-11
- Art Center College of Design (Pasadena, Calif.), 1999-02-07 to 1999-04-25
- Rose, Barbara, Helen Frankenthaler, 1970,
- Rose, Barbara, Profiles in American Art, 1981,
- Armory Center for the Arts/Art Center College of Design, Radical Past: Contemporary Art & Music in Pasadena, 1960-1974, 1999, p. 89
- Norton Simon Museum Members' Summer Newsletter, 2001,
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