Helen Frankenthaler, American

Born 1928, Frankenthaler is still painting at the age of 80. An abstract expressionist widely considered "the country's most prominent living female artist." Her career was launched in 1952 with the exhibition of Mountains and Sea. This painting is large - measuring seven feet by ten feet - and has the effect of a watercolor, though it is painted in oils. In it, she introduced the technique of painting directly on to an unprepared canvas so that the material absorbs the colors. She heavily diluted the oil paint with turpentine or kerosene so that the color would soak into the canvas. This technique, known as "soak stain" was adopted by other artists (notably Morris Louis and Kenneth Noland) and launched the second generation of the Color Field school of painting.

"The great achievement, here as in the work that followed it for nearly a quarter century, consists of Frankenthaler's adaptation of the fluidity and transparency of washes over drawn lines, and the luminosity of thin glazes without the fat opacities of oil paint, to the scale of the large canvas, then the format of the Abstract Expressionists." artchive, dec. 2008

Very often students comment "my little (brother/sister) could do THAT" and I have to agree, in part.  I think that is why I like Frankenthaler's work. I like art that is fun, without a story or meaning. Lighten up, people! Art can be about color, it doesn't have to have an elk, a duck, or a flower. And Helen Frankenthaler made that possible for you, because she broke the rules in 1960.
Frankenthaler has a spontaneous, lively, and even childlike use of color, but as you study you realize she is very precise in her choice of colors, and use of transparency, shapes and balance.  Until the 20th century COLOR was not worthy as a subject of a painting, just as peasants and farm animals were not worthy in 19th century France (Realist Painting). Frankenthaler broke the rules, by using color as a subject, media, and inspiration, and by being a woman.

Frankenthaler's works are still copyrighted by the artist, and Poster prints are one of the most readily available source online for study.

More about Color Stain painting