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Inspiration from Artists Wk 134 Featuring Artists Helena Frankenhaler and Robert Bevan
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Message
Posted
Welcome to this weeks Inspiration from Artist thread this week the featuring artists are :
Helena Frankenhaler and Robert Bevan .
Martin will open with his introduction to the artwork of Helena Frankenhaler and on Wednesday Jenny Will introduce us to the artwork of Robert Bevan.
Have a good week and enjoy your art .
Posted
Helen Frankenthaler (1928-2011) (wikipedia) was born in New York, and her artistic development coincided with the period when that city was taking over from Paris as the focus of innovative art in the 20th century. Initially a member of the abstract expressionist school, her breakthrough came in 1952, after seeing Jackson Pollock's approach of dripping enamel paint on to unprimed canvases laid flat on the ground. She adapted his approach by soaking heavily-thinned oil pigments over large-scale charcoal outlines drawn on to unprimed canvas, leading to what many regard as the iconic Frankenthaler work, Mountains and Sea (wikipedia) a 2.2 x 3m canvas based on her memories of a trip to Nova Scotia. Her 'soak-stain' technique influenced colour-field artists such as Kenneth Noland and Morris Louis. While an archival nightmare, the soaking of the canvas in this way leads to a unification of pigment and support, great translucency and an almost watercolour effect. She is credited with catalysing the transition from abstract expressionism to colour-field painting (although I imagine artists such as Mark Rothko might have something to say about that).
I admire artists who aim for originality. As she herself said "There are no rules... that is how art is born, that is how breakthroughs happen. Go against the rules or ignore the rules, that is what invention is about." After stretching a new canvas yesterday and thinking about Frankenthaler's technique, I was in two minds about priming the surface myself. There is something special about seeing the natural colour and material quality of the raw fabric peeping through a finished painting.
You can read more about her in Alexander Nemerov's recent biography: Fierce Poise: Helen Frankenthaler and 1950s New York.
Now to a selection of her work.
I admire artists who aim for originality. As she herself said "There are no rules... that is how art is born, that is how breakthroughs happen. Go against the rules or ignore the rules, that is what invention is about." After stretching a new canvas yesterday and thinking about Frankenthaler's technique, I was in two minds about priming the surface myself. There is something special about seeing the natural colour and material quality of the raw fabric peeping through a finished painting.
You can read more about her in Alexander Nemerov's recent biography: Fierce Poise: Helen Frankenthaler and 1950s New York.
Now to a selection of her work.
Edited
by Martin Cooke
Posted
Western Dream (1957), 1.77 x 2.18m, oil on unprimed canvas, which, according to the The Met where it is housed, represents "a lyrical and hallucinatory suggestion of landscape, sky, breeze, heat, and turf, with hints of flora and fauna scattered throughout" (more here)
Posted
One of my favourites is Canyon from 1965, for reasons that many will find obscure. I don't know if she set out to achieve this, but her tones of orange and green-blue here create a shimmering boundary, because the early stages of visual processing find it hard to pin down a precise edge when two colours have similar values. I've used this idea in some of my own work.
Posted
A good introduction, Martin. I like the way you have presented individual paintings with their titles and dimensions.
Interesting to say the least. I've not heard of 'field-colour' painting and did a search for it, after which, I think, The Met summed her work up in general, lyrical and hallucinatory.
Maybe we could have a field-colour challenge thread.
Edited
by Carol Jones
Posted
Thank you for you interesting and informative introduction Martin . I will have a look later today at more of her work as so far I really don’t like her work, to me she is at the bottom of the list of artists yiu have introduced us to so far . In all the other artists whilst they haven’t always been my taste there was something I liked about there work unfortunately that’s not happening so far with this artist. Hopefully I will come across something that I like and I will post it when I do.
I’m fascinated at how we all look at a painting and all see it differently even when it’s something very conventional , we all see it slightly different I suppose that’s what makes art so interesting.
Posted
Given her approach, she was wise to switch to acrylics.
Some of the paintings you've shown seem to me to work better than others, though I really like the last four, up above. Not the sort of painting I've ever wanted to do - my one attempt at abstract painting was much smaller than these, and while I quite enjoyed it (and wonder where it went, because I don't have it now and am sure I didn't sell it) I didn't get the same kick out of it that representational painting can give, when it works. On the other hand, there's a freedom in it, which is shown in these paintings - a knocking-down of the barriers, assumptions, expectations, rules. Of all the abstract painters you've championed, I think it's this one whose work most appeals.
PS: I see I'm the opposite of Paul - hadn't read his post before I wrote mine; as he says, though, we all see different things in paintings, abstract or figurative. I also notice now that two of the above are prints - the yellow work really caught my eye, as did that great splash of gorgeous red; it's possible that I'm being converted to abstraction, though again - to look at and enjoy, but not to do.
PPS: Lithographs, not "prints". Was the red one an oil? Could easily have been an acrylic, and would have a lot better chance of enduring if it was.
Edited
by Robert Jones, NAPA
