Helen Frankenthaler: Painting without rules

Organized by the Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi, Florence and the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, New York in collaboration with the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao. Curator: Douglas Dreishpoon, Director of the Helen Frankenthaler Catalogue Raisonné. Sponsor: BBVA Foundation.

The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao presents Helen Frankenthaler: Painting Without Rules, the largest exhibition ever held in Spain dedicated to this great artist pioneer of abstraction. The show, sponsored by the BBVA Foundation, Strategic Trustee of the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao from 1997, and organized by the Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi and the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation in collaboration with the Museum, celebrates Helen Frankenthaler’s revolutionary art through a chronological journey that follows her prolific career over six decades.

Helen Frankenthaler: Painting Without Rules contextualizes the painter’s creative output through the lens of artistic affinities, influences, and friendships. Comprising thirty of Frankenthaler’s poetic abstractions created between 1953 and 2002, the exhibition also features select paintings and sculptures by some of her contemporaries—Anthony Caro, Morris Louis, Robert Motherwell, Kenneth Noland, Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, and David Smith, highlighting the synergies between these artists.  The exhibition will also include two additional major paintings by Frankenthaler that have recently entered Guggenheim Bilbao’s Collection.

Helen Frankenthaler (New York, 1928–Connecticut, 2011) played a pivotal role in the transition from Abstract Expressionism to Color Field painting. Best known for her invention of the soak-stain technique, the artist produced a prolific stream of paintings on canvas and paper, in addition to sculptures, ceramics, tapestries, and print editions. Her innovative work, represented in the collections of major museums worldwide, continues to inspire contemporary artists.