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Lot Essay
Championed by the influential art critic Clement Greenberg in the 1950s and 1960s, Color Field painting developed from the visual aesthetics of Abstract Expressionism, but at the same time rejected many of its principles. By the early 1950s, the artists who followed the lead of gestural painters like de Kooning and Kline were increasingly viewed as derivative and overwrought. Many of the "second generation" Abstract Expressionist painters lacked the authority and imagination of their predecessors and critics began looking elsewhere for new artistic developments.
Greenberg, who had previously promoted artists such as Jackson Pollock, felt the future lay with artists who eschewed the angst-ridden gestural brushstroke in favor of works whose primary concerns were color, often in waves or unmodulated fields, and above all, flatness. In addition to being an influential art critic, Greenberg also curated exhibitions, which made him one of the most powerful figures in the artworld at this time. Greenberg organized a seminal 1954 exhibition for the celebrated Kootz Gallery, marking the first time many of these artists were exhibited together.
Helen Frankenthaler's breakthrough painting, Untitled, provided inspiration for many of the artists who would become Color Field painters. Frankenthaler created her masterpiece by dramatically thinning acrylic paint until she could apply it like watercolor and stain the canvas rather than using a brush. Her innovative working methods opened up new possibilities for a generation of artists. Helen Frankenthaler's broad sweeps of color in Untitled reflects her desire to take the style of her abstract expressionist forebears and free it from the egocentric gestures that dominated the work of her male counterparts. Beautifully balanced, the color elements that congregate around the edges as well as the center of the canvas are resolutely abstract, yet succeed in evoking a liberating sense of openness and nature.
Greenberg, who had previously promoted artists such as Jackson Pollock, felt the future lay with artists who eschewed the angst-ridden gestural brushstroke in favor of works whose primary concerns were color, often in waves or unmodulated fields, and above all, flatness. In addition to being an influential art critic, Greenberg also curated exhibitions, which made him one of the most powerful figures in the artworld at this time. Greenberg organized a seminal 1954 exhibition for the celebrated Kootz Gallery, marking the first time many of these artists were exhibited together.
Helen Frankenthaler's breakthrough painting, Untitled, provided inspiration for many of the artists who would become Color Field painters. Frankenthaler created her masterpiece by dramatically thinning acrylic paint until she could apply it like watercolor and stain the canvas rather than using a brush. Her innovative working methods opened up new possibilities for a generation of artists. Helen Frankenthaler's broad sweeps of color in Untitled reflects her desire to take the style of her abstract expressionist forebears and free it from the egocentric gestures that dominated the work of her male counterparts. Beautifully balanced, the color elements that congregate around the edges as well as the center of the canvas are resolutely abstract, yet succeed in evoking a liberating sense of openness and nature.