Helen Frankenthaler: Finding Color

The renowned American abstract artist Helen Frankenthaler (1928–2011) famously declared her ambition to create paintings that appeared “born at once,” their spontaneity rooted in a process of “finding color as I go.”

Her lifelong engagement with printmaking introduced a different sense of time into this intuitive search for color. Working closely with leading studios and master printers, Frankenthaler embraced the medium’s technical demands, including the sequencing and separation of colors, the development of new tools, and the unforeseen interactions of paper, matrix, and ink.

Bringing together eighteen works spanning five decades—including paintings, editioned prints, and trial proofs—Helen Frankenthaler: Finding Color explores how the deliberate techniques of printmaking became a means of coloristic discovery. 

The exhibition is made possible by the Frankenthaler Prints Initiative, a grantmaking program established by the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation in 2018 to enrich academic institutions’ collections and promote scholarly research on Frankenthaler’s innovative contributions to printmaking.

Finding Color was curated by Sara Lent Frier, former Burton and Deedee McMurtry Assistant Curator of Prints, Drawings, and Academic Engagement.

The exhibition is made possible by the Frankenthaler Prints Initiative, a grantmaking program established by the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation in 2018 to enrich academic institutions’ collections and promote scholarly research on Frankenthaler’s innovative contributions to printmaking.

Finding Color was curated by Sara Lent Frier, former Burton and Deedee McMurtry Assistant Curator of Prints, Drawings, and Academic Engagement.

The exhibition is made possible by the Frankenthaler Prints Initiative, a grantmaking program established by the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation in 2018 to enrich academic institutions’ collections and promote scholarly research on Frankenthaler’s innovative contributions to printmaking.