Helen Frankenthaler at Palazzo Strozzi

With her soak-stain practice of pouring thinned paint on untreated canvas, Helen Frankenthaler produced works with a transcendent, watercolor-like effect. A new exhibition at Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi in Florence, the largest retrospective of the pioneering postwar artist ever held in Italy, presents her large-scale paintings, works on paper and sculpture in an expansive, though not comprehensive, chronological survey. Frankenthaler’s jubilant, poetic veils of pure color and form marked a significant transition from abstract expressionism to color field painting, and the exhibition places these works in dialogue with her contemporaries, including Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Morris Louis and Anne Truitt.

^{Image: Photo Ela Bialkowska, OKNO Studio. Courtesy Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi, Florence. © 2024 Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, Inc. / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / SIAE, Roma}