Showcased in the book Abstract Painting: Concepts and Techniques, Helen Frankenthaler’s innovation of stain painting lent itself particularly to evoking nature – the processes involving water, evaporation and free-flowing, soft color. It is fitting that her works should be viewed within the context of such inspiration.
Noted the curator, Alexandra Schwartz:
“As in Nature examines Frankenthaler’s decades-long engagement with the tradition of landscape painting, within the context of her extraordinary career. The exhibition and catalogue consider the critical reception of her work, particularly as a pioneering woman artist.”
The Clark Institute will open the exhibit July 1 through October 9, 2017. The Clark press release states:
… while all are primarily abstract, [the paintings] also contain allusions to landscape, demonstrating how Frankenthaler’s delicate balance between abstraction and a nuanced responsiveness to nature and place developed and shifted over time. As Frankenthaler once commented, “Anything that has beauty and provides order (rather than chaos or shock alone), anything resolved in a picture (as in nature) gives pleasure—a sense of rightness, as in being one with nature.”
Frankenthaler’s work is discussed several times in the book Abstract Painting: Concepts and Techniques .