Helen Frankenthaler

Helen Frankenthaler ( born December 12, 1928 in New York City; † December 27, 2011 in Darien, Connecticut) was an American painter and major representative of the color field painting ( Color Field Painting) and of abstract expressionism. Her most famous works include paintings Mountains and Sea (1952) and Robinson 's Wrap (1974).

Life

Helen Frankenthaler was the youngest of three daughters of the New York Supreme Court Judge Alfred Frankenthaler and the German -born Martha Lowenstein Frankenthaler.

She attended private schools and received from 1945 painting at the New York School in Dalton Rufino Tamayo. In 1946 she studied at Bennington College in Vermont, and from 1947 to 1949 at the Art Students League of New York. In 1950 she took private lessons with Hans Hofmann. She also studied at Columbia University art history with Meyer Schapiro.

In the New York art world of the 1950s, she met avant-garde artists such as Jackson Pollock and Robert Motherwell know that inspired them to their own spontaneous - abstract imagery. Other important influences were the works of Morris Louis and Kenneth Noland. In 1958 she married Robert Motherwell, the marriage lasted until 1969. In 1959 she took part in Documenta II in Kassel.

Frankenthaler taught until the late 1980s at numerous institutes and universities, including Yale University.

Helen Frankenthaler died on 27 December 2011 at the age of 83 years.