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Helen Frankenthaler

Holocaust, 1955

Description

Maker

  • Helen Frankenthaler, 1928 - 2011, American

Title

Holocaust

Year

1955

Medium

Enamel, oil, and turpentine on canvas

Materials/Techniques

Materials

  • oil paint

Supports

  • canvas

Dimensions

173.7 x 137.2 cm (68 3/8 x 54 inches)

Signature / Inscription / Marks

Signed LR:Frankenthaler 10/55

Type

  • Paintings

Credit

The Albert Pilavin Memorial Collection of 20th-Century American Art

Object Number

72.108

Projects & Publications

Publications

Painted on 21st Street Helen Frankenthaler From 1950-1959

Selected Works

The Albert Pilavin Collection

Twentieth-Century American Art, II

Exhibition History

Exhibition History

The Phantom of Liberty

May 4 - December 30, 2018

In 2002, I wrote to [Frankenthaler’s] home on Contentment Island in Darien, Connecticut, and to her gallery in New York City, requesting an interview. She denied my request, explaining in a three-sentence letter that the painting’s title may only have suggested to her a feeling of “turbulence.” –George M. Goodwin, “Wrestling with Frankenthaler: Her Painting in the RISD Museum”

The meanings of an abstract work will depend on its materiality, its situation, the processes of its making, its composition, its title, its symbolic suggestions and counter-suggestions, its context in a discussion of abstraction, and in the artist’s work. In other words, the way in which a work of abstract art generates meaning can be extremely complicated. Considered in this way, it might seem entirely possible that an abstract work can represent the Holocaust in complex ways.
–Mark Godfrey, Abstraction and the Holocaust

Celebrating the Jewish Contribution to Twentieth-Century American Art

November 12, 2004 - March 5, 2005

The New York School

November 7, 2003 - January 25, 2004

New York School Abstraction

November 9, 2001 - February 17, 2002

20th-Century Art from the Albert Pilavin Collection

November 22, 1996 - April 6, 1997

From the Reserve II

June 24 - August 27, 1994

The Moderns

August 6, 1993 - March 13, 1994

The Art of this Century

February 1 - June 2, 1991

Albert Pilavin Collection

October 23 - November 25, 1973

Use

The images on this website can enable discovery and collaboration and support new scholarship, and we encourage their use. This object is in Copyright. This object is Holocaust with the accession number of 72.108. To request high-resolution files or new photography, please send an email to imagerequest@risd.edu and include your name and the object's accession number.

Feedback

We view our online collection as a living documents, and our records are frequently revised and enhanced. If you have additional information or have spotted an error, please send feedback to curatorial@risd.edu.

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