Helen Frankenthaler (1928–2011) was one of the most innovative and influential artists to emerge in the mid-twentieth century. Initially celebrated for her spontaneous and expressive Abstract Expressionist painting, she continuously developed her artistic approach throughout her lengthy career.
In 1961, Frankenthaler made her first print and took on the collaborative and technical challenge of printmaking. Over the next fifty years she became one of the most active and creative printmakers of her generation, creating a body of work that stands out for the diversity of techniques she used and the number of studios with which she partnered.
Radius: Helen Frankenthaler Prints in Context celebrates the generous gift of fifteen prints from the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, which in 2023 joined two other Frankenthaler prints in the Eskenazi Museum of Art collection. The exhibition displays Frankenthaler’s prints side-by-side with other prints from the museum's collection by artists who had ties to the Abstract Expressionist movement, such as Grace Hartigan, Lee Krasner, Robert Motherwell, and Jackson Pollock. This dialogue illuminates Frankenthaler’s connections with her contemporaries as well as her ingenuity and unique mastery of printmaking. The exhibition includes four proofs (test prints) and the final edition print of Radius (1993), evoking the circle of artists in Frankenthaler’s orbit and inspiring the title.
