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Over the previous decade or so, the US artist Helen Frankenthaler (1928-2011) has come out of the shadows forged by her extra well-known Summary Expressionist contemporaries, with a number of necessary exhibits and publications devoted to her. This yr is not any totally different, with the reissuing of John Elderfield’s 1989 monograph and a sweeping survey on the Palazzo Strozzi, which opened final month. The present is curated by Douglas Dreishpoon, who’s the director of the Helen Frankenthaler catalogue raisonné undertaking and likewise the co-author of a 2022 ebook concerning the latter levels of her profession (Helen Frankenthaler: Late Works, 1988-2009). Right here, he selects 5 of the very best books to become familiar with Frankenthaler’s life and work.
Frankenthaler (1989, reissued 2024) by John Elderfield
“A seminal monograph by a foremost Helen Frankenthaler scholar, revised and expanded to incorporate the final chapter of the painter’s life. An indispensable primer for anybody fascinated about Frankenthaler’s spectacular achievements over the course of 60 years.”
“The heroine Paint”: After Frankenthaler (2015) edited by Katy Siegel
“A wealthy anthology, consisting of historic and up to date texts, artists’ statements, visible chronologies, archival paperwork and supplies gleaned from in style media, that opens up new views on Frankenthaler’s life and work, and its generational impression on youthful artists.”
Ninth Road Ladies: Lee Krasner, Elaine de Kooning, Grace Hartigan, Joan Mitchell, and Helen Frankenthaler: 5 Painters and the Motion That Modified Fashionable Artwork (2018) by Mary Gabriel
“Earlier than Ninth Road Ladies, nobody had written so perceptively concerning the female-centric, bohemian milieu that solid Frankenthaler’s inventive sensibility. Having this a part of her life story mapped out so meticulously helps to higher perceive what got here afterwards.”
Summary Climates: Helen Frankenthaler in Provincetown (2018) by Lise Motherwell and Elizabeth Smith
“The summers that Frankenthaler spent in Provincetown, Massachusetts (1950-69), within the firm of her husband, the painter Robert Motherwell, household and shut buddies, have been nothing wanting prolific. This catalogue paperwork these halcyon years via private anecdotes, scholarly essays and an illustrated chronology.”
Fierce Poise: Helen Frankenthaler and Fifties New York (2021) by Alexander Nemerov
“A nuanced account of Frankenthaler’s inventive coming of age in downtown Manhattan, among the many temperamental minions of the New York Faculty. The determine that emerges from Nemerov’s poetic narrative rises within the reader’s creativeness as a inventive power: fiercely decided, endearingly human.”
• Helen Frankenthaler: Portray With out Guidelines, Palazzo Strozzi, Florence, till 26 January 2025
