27 December 2011

Frankenthaler, feeling the rhythm

 .
  requiescat in pace
American Abstract Expressionist 
Helen Frankenthaler, December 12, 1928 – December 27, 2011
 

  “For me, being a ‘lady painter’ was never an issue,” she was quoted as saying in John Gruen’s book “The Party’s Over Now” (1972). “I don’t resent being a female painter. I don’t exploit it. I paint.” Helen Frankenthaler






the 5th in a series inspired last year by this Patti Smith video, the power of great Artists is Genderless
-as is their Art.








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11 comments:

  1. It always surprises me when gender is brought into things. Which means I am often surprised.

    The second painting, the one she sits in front of, reminds me of a video installation by Bill Viola in which a man plunges up and down in water, and the viewer plunges up and down with him.

    Happy New Year PGT
    PP@pimpmybricks

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  2. I heard it here first. Frankenthaler is one of those artists I'm late in coming around to which is to say I never liked her until I did. Late this past summer while visiting The Palm Springs Museum I saw a wonderful work of hers, April Screen. I was instantly attracted to it and rather surprised to find out she was the artist. I imagined it was a relatively new painting rather than one from 1972. I suppose it's meant to be purely abstract like all of her work but it's not hard to find a human torso in it.

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  3. I haven't ever read anything you have written yet. Had to tell you. I heard on NPR (some of us listen? Right?) that she died. And the first thought in my head...(I could not make this up!) I can't wait to read what Little Augury writes about her. I know nothing about her; I was an English Lit major. What I know is when I say (three times in my life)

    Wow!!! "I LOVE that Now that is my kind of modern art"!!!
    Helen. every time. I do not understand anything about Modern Art. I knew I loved her paintings.......and I saw them all over the place as a young person....I could never tell they were "hers"! I wonder why?

    Brilliant post....as always!

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  4. Another light dimmed. But her works live on. Thank you. Mary

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  5. Very graceful paintings. Thank you & happy new year if I don't pop over again - which is very likely:)

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  6. Serious, inventive, a risk taker...genderless. PGT, your posts are always fascinating, thought provoking...this has been an incredible year at Little Augury, in a series of incredible years, with engaging posts. After reading one of your posts I can usually be found staring above the computer screen, lost in thought.
    I feel as though the 20th c , now on the cusp of 2012, is slipping away -those figures who so dominated that century are leaving us...and what I take from it all, Frankenthaler, and others, is that the act of creation, of doing something, new, inventive, risk-taking, genderless, is, among other things, an act of optimism. That is what I am taking in 2012,
    Thank you for the journey.
    Warmest,
    PB

    ReplyDelete
  7. Serious, inventive, a risk taker...genderless. PGT, your posts are always fascinating, thought provoking...this has been an incredible year at Little Augury, in a series of incredible years, with engaging posts. After reading one of your posts I can usually be found staring above the computer screen, lost in thought.
    I feel as though the 20th c , now on the cusp of 2012, is slipping away -those figures who so dominated that century are leaving us...and what I take from it all, Frankenthaler, and others, is that the act of creation, of doing something, new, inventive, risk-taking, genderless, is, among other things, an act of optimism. That is what I am taking in 2012,
    Thank you for the journey.
    Warmest,
    PB

    ReplyDelete
  8. What a loss! Thank you for a great tribute.

    Cheers,

    Claudia

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  9. A lovely tribute to a very talented painter. Agree with you regarding the gender question. Funny how that's either a long discussion or a very short one. Curtis

    ReplyDelete

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