The Gagosian Gallery in Chelsea is currently featuring a major exhibition of paintings from the 1950s by Helen Frankenthaler titled Painted on 21st Street titled after a 1959 catalogue of her work. The show offers nearly 30 significant and rarely shown works obtained from Frankenthaler’s estate, as well as works from public and private collections that were completed throughout the 1950s.
Frankenthaler was among the few and most influential female Abstract-Expressionist artists of her time. Her contemporaries included Jackson Pollack, Willem de Kooning, and Hans Hoffmann. Frankenthaler died in December 2011 at age 83; her husband, the artist Robert Motherwell, had died 20 years earlier. Frankenthaler was born and spent much of her life living in New York City and working at her studio.
The works in this show include the widely recognized Painted on 21st Street (1950–51) and Mountains and Sea (1952); as well as key paintings of the later part of the decade such as Jacob’s Ladder (1957) and Before the Caves (1958). Each painting reveals a fresh look at the great range and diversity of Frankenthaler’s body of work. The exhibition is accompanied by a detailed catalogue with an introduction by John Elderfield, who curated the show.
At The Gagosian Gallery, 522 W. 21st St., through April 13. The gallery is open from Tuesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. until 6 p.m.
Comments