Helen Frankenthaler

We authenticate, certify, issue certificates of authenticity (COA), appraise the value and broker the sale of paintings, drawings and prints by Helen FRANKENTHALER.

United States

Born in 1928, Manhattan, New York.

Died in 2011, Darien, CT, aged 83.

She spent all her life in the United States.

Typical subject matter:

She is renowned for her work as an abstract painter, belonging to the Abstract Expressionists. Her compositions typically brought together large patches of transparent and colourful paint on a canvas left bare at places.

Typical style:

She is renowned for her manner to diluting the oil she used with large quantities of turpentine, treating it almost like ink in washes. Helen Frankenthaler worked on the floor, pouring pigments and paint directly onto the canvas. The paint spreads out in puddles of colour, forming shapes and stains. Sometimes she would write charcoal annotations on the canvas beforehand, indicating the relative location of specific colours. These inscriptions are sometimes still visible through transparency. The backgrounds of her canvases are typically left bare, and she does not attempt to cover the entire pictorial surface with colour. Her colours are very transparent and are sometimes surrounded by a halo of turpentine. Rough brushstrokes sometimes interact with her large patches of transparent liquid paint. She used bright colours, but in a way that was not aggressive: oranges, blues, greens and pinks coexist without preference in her canvases.

Typical material and media:

She mostly worked in oil or acrylic on canvas. For her prints she used lithograph and woodcut on paper.

If you own a painting, a print, or a drawing by or attributed to Helen Frankenthaler, we would like to learn about it. Please send us photos or contact us at [email protected] You will generally receive a response within 24 hours.