Helen Frankenthaler, Reflections II, 1995

Lithograph in colours, 1995, on BFK Rives paper, signed and dated by the artist, a printer’s proof, aside from the standard edition of 30, published by Tyler Graphics Ltd., Bedford, with their blindstamp, 67.9 x 53.3 cm.

Frankenthaler was a trailblazer of the modern print-making movement, endlessly pushing and transcending boundaries through relentless experimentation. She approached her work without pre-determined ideas and favoured an artistic process that focused on sensation and celebrating mistakes, arguing that they were fundamental to being an ‘artist’. In her approach she regularly remarked ‘suppose I do this?’ which was radical in the context of printmaking of the time. Her liberated approach is echoed in the rust like pools of printing ink in Reflections II, which seem to have been allowed to simply flow wherever the surface of the paper permitted, without the guidance of the artist’s hand. Every print she made only added to her extensive vocabulary, a visual language that the art critic Judith Goldman notes as ‘one that was direct and unencumbered, abstract and realistic, free and controlled, empathetically flat and capable of creating a deep space’.

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Helen Frankenthaler

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