By Rebecca Ceccatelli. Cover image: Helen Frankenthaler in her studio at East 83rd Street while working for April Mood and Under April Mood (both 1974), New York, 1974. Photograph by Alexander Liberman; © J. Paul Getty Trust. Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (2000.R.19). Artwork © 2024 Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, Inc. / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

Upon entering the Helen Frankenthaler exhibition, visitors are greeted by a world of floating and free clouds. Who is granting so much freedom to colour, allowing it to expand, drip, and permeate the canvases that silently rest on the walls of the rooms? Who, at the same time, occasionally regrets such freedom, shifting from the act of adding to that of removing colour?
From September 27 to January 26, 2025, Palazzo Strozzi hosts the largest retrospective ever organised in Italy on the revolutionary 20th-century artist Helen Frankenthaler, often overshadowed by her contemporaries. She was the wife of Robert Motherwell, a colleague of Jackson Pollock and David Smith, and a close friend of Mark Rothko. But who is this woman who painted without rules?
The new exhibition by the Florentine Foundation not only pays homage to Frankenthaler but also allows visitors to step into her studio, sit on the sofa in her living room, and experience her artistic process where the pigment, liquefied into colour, explores canvases, solid materials, and paper as an extension of the artist’s soul. In this case, Helen Frankenthaler and her Painting without Rules.

Helen Frankenthaler in 1950: splitting a Century and Marking a New Beginning

It is not easy to organise a retrospective for an artist with such a long career. Helen Frankenthaler experimented tirelessly for 60 years in the world of art. She felt a strong connection to this field from a young age, especially after being inspired by the works of her contemporaries, particularly the dynamic, textured, and expressive painting of Jackson Pollock. Helen discovered a natural inclination for Pollock’s dripping painting technique. She was so drawn to it that she soon decided not only to live in this world but to dominate it by mastering its language. She dedicated her entire being to uncovering a painting style that could transcend the boundaries of figurative art.
Supported by key figures like Clement Greenberg, a staunch advocate of Abstract Expressionism, it was much easier for her to pursue the path she had set for herself. In fact, no one better than Greenberg could have introduced and guided her into the artistic and cultural scene of 1950s New York, a city that quickly became her own. There, she began to find her way, just like her colour soaking into the canvas.
Soon, the time came for her first exhibitions and early experiments.

The soak-stain technique: Helen Frankenthaler’s revolutionary approach to colour

Helen Frankenthaler is often credited with bridging the gap between Abstract Expressionism and Color Field painting. When working on a large white canvas spread out on the floor in her studio or a large sheet of paper (also an important medium for the artist as it could be easily destroyed in case of failure), she emphasised the creative process rather than the final result. A video near the end of the exhibition finally unveils the abracadabra word to access the artist’s world, showing her at work, busy applying the innovative painting technique that she herself created and developed: the soak-stain technique, emphasising stain absorption.
The technique is based on the belief that colour has its own autonomy and is not controlled by the artist.

Diluted paint is poured onto raw canvas, creating translucent fields of colour, where the edges often prove to be the most intriguing aspect. At these boundaries, the true “life” of colour becomes evident as the paint decides where to stop on the canvas and in what specific shape—whether irregular, linear, blurred, or sharp. At these precise boundaries of painting, Frankenthaler not only defies the norm that materials must obey the painter but also challenges the very concepts of colour, space, and form, developing her own expressive language. At the same time, the artist didn’t rely solely on chance as the pigment moved across the canvas. Her relationship with colour was one of complete unity, allowing the liquid to reflect her inner self. In a mutual understanding, colour-soaked sponges became the agents of this union. They sometimes intervened to remove excess colour, mirroring the way individuals in romantic relationships may fail to understand their partner and overstep boundaries or express their feelings too intensely. Sponges served the dual purpose of applying and removing colour, while fingers intervened to define details.

Standing Apart: Helen Frankenthaler’s Legacy Beyond Her Famous Contemporaries

However, compared to the works of her contemporaries—also displayed in the gallery alongside Frankenthaler—her paintings seem to present a universe of poetic abstraction where the light shines with a different brilliance. You can immediately recognise a Pollock, a Rothko, or a Motherwell even before reading the artwork’s label. Exhibited next to her work in her retrospective, all those male artists were the ones who shaped and helped the figure of the artist become what it is today.
In Frankenthaler’s works, you can not only find details of her contemporaries but also see traces of her influence in theirs; she and her contemporaries not only shared professional respect but also their lives. She dedicated part of her life to one of them, Robert Motherwell, who was her husband until their divorce a few years later.

However, what sets Frankenthaler’s works apart is the choreography she orchestrates with the shapes: genuine and spontaneous, a direct extension of her imagination through painterly gestures, symbols, or evocative scenes. Although her work often ventures into pure abstraction, it occasionally approaches figuration through the viewer’s interpretation or even resembles landscapes, drawing parallels between her painting and the gentle hand of nature and all its nuances.
The 1970s marked the peak of Helen Frankenthaler’s career, during which she fully mastered the technique she developed. The initial uncertainty of pouring colour was replaced by complete mastery, allowing the artist’s creativity and the material to harmonise, evoking a wave of emotions that gradually become worthy of contemplation for us as observers.
This is the very power that makes her unique: the ability to create atmospheres that, while initially incomprehensible, gradually reveal more of the creator’s inner self. We stand in front of her creations as if we were looking directly into her soul, contemplating every single shade.

The Physicality of Paint: Helen Frankenthaler’s Bold Late-Period Works

After going through a divorce and reaching middle age, Helen began her final period of painting. During this time, she focused on the interplay of light and shadow against dark, colourful backgrounds enriched with small, almost reflective, light spots—so textured that they seemed to be still drying. While Frankenthaler continued to create works in a single session to capture the specific emotions of the moment, she slowed her artistic pace in what she referred to as “recovered” works. These pieces involved more time and labour, as she revisited them repeatedly to achieve the desired result. They featured more intense splashes rather than drips, with elements such as stars from distant galaxies and celestial bursts entering the canvas.
The materials she used also varied as she continued her experimentation. Acrylic gels worked with hard, raw tools added texture to the colour, which was no longer an infused part of the canvas but sought to emerge from it in all its physical form. Perhaps this was a response to the existential questions that come with ageing, leading to a realisation of the fleeting nature of time, which in turn influenced her art, making it more dynamic and rapid. In any case, even the late period of the artist’s life contributed to defining her as an artist beyond the rules. She was never indecisive, always with a sure hand—even though her style was non-figurative. And above all, she was free to follow her instincts.

“My rule is no rules, and if you have a real sense of limits,
then you are free to break out of them.”