Frankenthaler's Impressive Prints

GALLERY

Helen Frankenthaler: Prints at the Museum of Fine Arts through March 13

From 1961 to the present, Helen Frankenthaler has been exploring the print-making process and redefining what a print can be. The Museum of Fine Arts' exhibit "Helen Frankenthaler Prints" includes works that span the artist's career, ranging from small prints to large-scale works, from a single color to twenty-seven, from preparatory drawings to sculptures.

The MFA's exhibition begins with Frankenthaler's first print, First Stone of 1961, and ends with her 1993 piece Freefall, which was completed just in time to be included in the show. In the years between the production of these two prints, Frankenthaler created a varied and extensive body of work totalling more than 230 prints.

This exhibit does more than chronicle the artist's career; it leaves the viewer with a clear idea of the artistic process Frankethaler undertakes with each print. The show demonstrates that process by placing working proofs of a print next to the finished product. Informative labelling explains the relationship between the stages, showing how the proof led Frankethaler to the final piece. The exhibit also illustrates the parallel between the artist's prints and her paintings, giving the viewer an idea of Frankenthaler's career as a whole and showing how her work in different media is inspired by the same themes and techniques.

The show displays Frankenthaler's technique akin to "color field" painting, inspired by Jackson Pollock's "drip paintings." This method uses an unprimed canvas so the pigment seeps into the picture and creates a stain instead of sitting on top of the surface. Through this technique, Frankenthaler has explored the way colors relate both to the surface and to each other, an issue which has interested her throughout her entire career.

Despite a wide variety of themes--such as landscape, the weather, human emotion, cosmic creation, and the print-making process itself--Frankenthaler's work always returns to the issue of color. Several works illustrate the artist's interest in the relationship between fields of color.

Connected by Joy depicts three dynamic black forms connected by three thin lines, each a different color--red, yellow, and blue. Frankenthaler's earlier prints show her interest in the color black complemented by small touches of bright color. Flirting with Stone is primarily black, white, and grey, but splotches of yellow, orange, blue, and red draw the eye through the composition.

Although many of Frankenthaler's prints are similar to her paintings, the collection constantly emphasizes how unique the printmaking process is. Print-making is a collaborative effort; Frankenthaler uses hand-made paper, on which her works are printed in workshops she oversees. The process Frankenthaler uses is often as interesting as the final result. For one of her largest works, printed on three sheets of paper, she completed the entire design in a single work session. Hence the title Lot's Wife, inspired by the process which Frankenthaler finished "without looking back," and also by the solid "pillarlike" forms in the print.

Another interesting aspect of the process is the relationship between the proof and the finished print. In some pairs, the two look alike except for one notable difference: for example, the colors in the proof of Yellow Span are reversed in the final print. The study for the most recent work, Freefall, is sculptural, built up with acrylic gel and paper pulp. The composition of the study and the final version is similar in almost every other aspect, yet the difference in texture renders each work unique.

The exhibition also includes an innovative piece which has been called Frankenthaler's "most ambitious print project." The Gateway series is composed of twelve different bronze screens, one of which appears in the show. The screens are a unique blend of sculpture, painting and print-making: prints on handmade paper are framed in a bronze folding screen. The fluid metalwork echoes the painterly strokes. The piece is double-sided, with each side worked to an equal degree of completion; there is no "front" or "back."

"Helen Frankenthaler Prints" is a valuable collection of work by an artist who has had a productive and varied career. The diversity of the works--in terms of style, materials, and timespan--and the fascinating insight into the process of print-making will leave the viewer with a clear understanding of Frankenthaler and the importance of her work.