Helen Frankenthaler ~ Spaced Out Orbit and Photographs

When I see works of art, I usually end up wondering who the artists were, how did they live their lives, what did they look like? Earlier in this week on Helen Frankenthaler and Spaced Out Orbit, I posted a video about her and her life (linked here). Since then I've begun looking for images of her on the internet and have found a number that show her and some that show her with her art. Here's what I've collected so far.

The Early Years – 1950's

Jackson Pollock, Clement Greenberg, Helen Frankenthaler, Lee Krasner and an unidentified child

1957 from Life

The 1960's and one from 1970
"There are no rules. That is how art is born, how breakthroughs happen. Go against the rules or ignore the rules. That is what invention is about."

During this period Helen Frankenthaler was married to Robert Motherwell




1970
After Motherwell
Frankenthaler and Motherwell divorced in 1971. Spaced Out Orbit was painted in 1973. She made several trips West during the seventies. Our Orbit may have been the result of one of those trips. Here she is in the next two decades...

1984
1991

"A really good picture looks as if it's happened at once. It's an immediate image. For my own work, when a picture looks labored and overworked, and you can read in it--well, she did this and then she did that, and then she did that--there is something in it that has not got to do with beautiful art to me. And I usually throw these out, though I think very often it takes ten of those over-labored efforts to produce one really beautiful wrist motion that is synchronized with your head and heart, and you have it, and therefore it looks as if it were born in a minute." ...Helen Frankenthaler

Helen Frankenthaler will turn 81 on December 12. I share her birthday and that pleases me.