Artist: Helen Frankenthaler
Title: Thanksgiving Day
Year: 1973
Dimension: 34,3 x 44,5 x 1.9 cms
Technique: Painting on ceramic tile
Price: TBC
About the Artist
“Helen Frankenthaler (December 12, 1928 – December 27, 2011) was an American abstract expressionist painter. She was a major contributor to the history of postwar American painting. Having exhibited her work for over six decades (early 1950s until 2011), she spanned several generations of abstract painters while continuing to produce vital and ever-changing new work. Frankenthaler began exhibiting her large-scale abstract expressionist paintings in contemporary museums and galleries in the early 1950s. She was included in the 1964 Post-Painterly Abstraction exhibition curated by Clement Greenberg that introduced a newer generation of abstract painting that came to be known as Color Field. Born in Manhattan, she was influenced by Greenberg, Hans Hofmann, and Jackson Pollock’s paintings. Her work has been the subject of several retrospective exhibitions, including a 1989 retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, and been exhibited worldwide since the 1950s. In 2001, she was awarded the National Medal of Arts.
Frankenthaler had a home and studio in Darien, Connecticut.”
Text taken from https://www.wikipedia.org
What does this work say (to me)?
It is extraordinary how our relentless contemporary eyes demand images and images and images… we are devourers of them.
The challenge that this brings is that we are constantly at risk of becoming immune to subtleties. The more images we see, the faster they pass in front of our eyes the louder they have to be to grasp our attention. It is a desperate race for attracting attention. Just attention!! Imagine if it would be for something more meaningful!!!… the sad side is that “the meaningful” has become just attention for many.
This is why going to museums or galleries and investing time in looking, looking deeply, appreciating the gradations, depth, and meaning of a work of art is so relevant these days.
One of the expressions of art that crave for our full and undivided attention is abstract art with its slippery meaning and countless possibilities of interpretation. If you want to establish a dialogue with the painting in question you have to stop and let yourself immerse in those areas of color not just visually but rationally and even emotionally too.
And for doing that a photo is never enough. You have to experience it, you need the one to one experience.
When I saw this painting by the well-known American abstract artist Helen Frankenthaler it appears to me powerfully subtle, discreet like the breeze that carries within it the fragrance of an exquisite perfume. One has to stop, consume it and enjoy it before it goes away.
The beautiful thing with subtle paintings is that their essences do not evaporate, they remain forever accessible for those that take the time to stop.
I was amazed by the composition; it looks like a landscape observed from a window. it is like a memory that is fading away.
This ethereal portrait of a “situation” that is known just by the artist, is loaded with beauty, serenity and joy. It just needs a moment for being appreciated.
In what Room to place it?
This is a small painting however I would place it in any room regardless of its size taking care of creating a niche especially for it so it can be brought to scale if the room is too big. It is like a magnet so it will bring the observers close to it so it can be enjoyed.
Displaying it
The first thing I would change is the white square hooks that keep the ceramic in place. They affect negatively the piece with their perfect shape and composition. Something more discreet has to be in place.
Like the idea of a box containing the painting but I would suggest it to be in wood instead of white. There are some pieces that need containment and I think this is one of those and certainly, the wooden box would provide that right room for the artwork to “breath”
