Helen Frankenthaler - Picture Quotes

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It [the Mauve-district in the U.S.] relates to a theme which appears on-and-off, of pictures that often have one central vast shape, district, or territory; in this case, the shape itself [a square] is a play on the very shape of the canvas (quote in 1969).

Helen Frankenthaler
A really good picture looks as if it's happened at once. It's an immediate image. For my own work, when a picture looks labored and overworked, and you can read in it as well - she did this and then she did that; there is something in it that has not got to do with beautiful art to me. And I usually throw these out, though I think very often it takes ten of those over-labored efforts to produce one really beautiful wrist motion that is synchronized with your head and heart, and you have it, and therefore it looks as if it were born in a minute.

Helen Frankenthaler
The picture developed – bit by bit while I was working on it – into shapes symbolic of an exuberant figure and ladder.... therefore: 'Jacob's Ladder' [the title of the painting she made in 1966].
On the birth of a title of the art-work 'Jacob's Ladder'

Helen Frankenthaler
With any picture, on paper or on canvas, the main idea is: does it work? Is it beautiful? People seem to feel that canvas is more 'serious' than paper, more desirable.

Helen Frankenthaler
I still, when I judge my own pictures (either while I'm working or after I think it's finished) determine if they work in a certain kind of space through shape or color. I think all totally abstract pictures – the best ones that really come off – Newman, Pollock, [Kenneth] Noland – have tremendous space; perspective space despite the emphasis on flat surface. For example, in Noland a band of yellow in relation to a band of blue and one of orange can move in depth although they are married to the surface. This has become a familiar explanation, but few people really see and feel it that way.... in my work, because of color and shape a lot is read in the landscape sense..

Helen Frankenthaler
There is no 'always'. No formula. There are no rules. Let the picture lead you where it must go.

Helen Frankenthaler
I wonder if my pictures are more "lyrical" (that loaded word!) because I'm a woman. Looking at my paintings as if they were painted by a woman is superficial, a side issue.

Helen Frankenthaler