Helen Frankenthaler

Helen Frankenthaler 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 , she spanned several generations of abstract painters while continuing to produce vital and everchanging new work. Frankenthaler began exhibiting her largescale abstract expressionist paintings in contemporary museums and galleries in the early 1950s. She was included in the 1964 PostPainterly 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 Hans Hofmann, Jackson Pollocks paintings and by Clement Greenberg. 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.

Helen Frankenthaler was born on December 12, 1928 in New York City. Her father was Alfred Frankenthaler, a respected New York State Supreme Court judge. Her mother, Martha , had emigrated with her family from Germany to the United States shortly after she was born. Her two sisters, Marjorie and Gloria, were six and five years older, respectively. Growing up on Manhattans Upper East Side, Frankenthaler absorbed the privileged background of a cultured and progressive Jewish intellectual family that encouraged all three daughters to prepare themselves for professional careers. Her nephew is the artistphotographer Clifford Ross.

Source: Wikipedia