Helen Frankenthaler: Sea Change: A Decade of Paintings, 1974-1983

Description

In the summer of 1974, Helen Frankenthaler (1928-2011) rented a house at Shippan Point in Stamford, Connecticut, facing the waters of Long Island Sound. This experience marked the beginning of an important period of change for her work, seen in the luminous paintings that are the focus of this volume. Frankenthaler returned regularly to Shippan Point following her initial visit, and the paintings gathered here reflect her responses to the changing appearance of its wide vistas and moving tides. In a new essay for this book, Frankenthaler scholar John Elderfield details the developments that took place in her work as she recorded the effects of these coastal surroundings, whether she was painting at her waterfront home or in her Manhattan studio. Published on the occasion of an exhibition at Gagosian Rome, this book features full-color plates, generous details, and documentary photographs of Frankenthaler in her studio. Showcasing fourteen of Helen Frankenthaler s paintings, dating from 1959 through 1962, and two earlier works on paper, this beautiful book highlights a radical and lesser-known body of works unique within the artist s oeuvre. The book includes color plates of all sixteen works, as well as four single-page and seven double-page spread details. Never before and rarely published documentary photographs appear throughout the book, along with a new and insightful text by John Elderfield. This book accompanies the 2017 exhibition of Frankenthaler s work at Gagosian Paris.

John Elderfield, chief curator emeritus of painting and sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art, and Allen R. Adler, class of 1967, Distinguished Curator and Lecturer at the Princeton University Art Museum, joined Gagosian five years ago as a consultant for special exhibitions. At Gagosian, he has championed the work of Helen Frankenthaler, and organized the major exhibition In the Studios: Paintings (2015). He has written over twenty-five books and nearly a hundred scholarly articles.