Gagosian, in collaboration with the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, has announced the publication of a new edition of John Elderfield’s Frankenthaler, the definitive monograph on the artist. Initially published by Abrams in 1989, this landmark book has been updated to cover the career of Helen Frankenthaler (1928–2011) in its entirety. Extensively revised throughout, the book additionally includes two new chapters: one that focuses on a previously overlooked group of Frankenthaler’s paintings of the late 1950s through the early 1960s, and a final chapter that discusses her late career from 1988 through 2002. The revised edition features more than three hundred full-color reproductions of her paintings, works on paper, prints, and sculpture, including many that have never been published in color, along with over a hundred comparative illustrations and documentary photographs.
The book has its origins in 1976, when Frankenthaler introduced herself to Elderfield via a note left at the information desk at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, soon after his inaugural exhibition as a curator there. Originally written over the course of a decade and drawing on extensive conversations with the artist, Frankenthaler offers key insights into her transformative practice, and quickly became the authoritative account of her oeuvre. Developing a new edition has allowed Elderfield to discuss Frankenthaler’s career after 1988, and to explore insights gained through decades of further research on her achievements, catalyzed in part by the eight posthumous exhibitions that he has organized at Gagosian over the past decade in collaboration with the artist’s foundation.
Each chapter is titled after a landmark work, charting innovations and continuities of Frankenthaler’s artistic evolution. Incorporating insightful analysis of her works and their reception across the entirety of her career, the revised edition is the most comprehensive book on the artist to date. A conversation between Elderfield, Gagosian Publications director Lauren Mahony, and National Gallery of Art curator Harry Cooper on the making of the new edition appears in the summer issue of Gagosian Quarterly.
Two events are planned for the autumn to further discuss the publication:
• On October 9th at 6pm, Gagosian and the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation are convening a panel at the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University in celebration of the monograph. Elderfield will discuss the book, followed by a panel featuring artist Carrie Moyer, Philadelphia Museum of Art curator Eleanor Nairne, Institute of Fine Arts professor Robert Slifkin, and Helen Frankenthaler Foundation executive director Elizabeth Smith.
• On November 13th at 6:30pm, Elderfield is speaking at the New York Studio School on “Rewriting Frankenthaler,” discussing lessons learned in extensively revising the 1989 monograph thirty-five years later.
Gagosian’s extensive in-house publishing program has produced over six hundred books, including catalogues raisonnés, artist monographs, scholarly exhibition catalogues, and limited-edition artist’s books. The gallery started publishing in 1985 and today its output rivals that of traditional arts trade publishers, averaging between twenty-five and forty books a year. Recent and forthcoming subjects include Harold Ancart, Richard Avedon, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Amoako Boafo, Urs Fischer, Jennifer Guidi, Simon Hantaï, Tetsuya Ishida, Donald Judd, Titus Kaphar, Rick Lowe, Brice Marden, Helen Marden, Nam June Paik, Pablo Picasso, Nathaniel Mary Quinn, Ed Ruscha, Jenny Saville, Setsuko, Jeff Wall, Mary Weatherford, Stanley Whitney, Jonas Wood, and Francesca Woodman. The gallery also produces Gagosian Quarterly, a celebrated print and online magazine.
Helen Frankenthaler: Painting Without Rules, co-organized by the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, will be on view at Palazzo Strozzi, Florence, from September 27th, 2024, to January 26th, 2025.
Helen Frankenthaler: Painting on Paper, 1990–2002 will be presented at Gagosian Rome from September 30th to November 23rd, 2024.
Helen Frankenthaler was born in New York in 1928, and died in Darien, Connecticut, in 2011. She is widely credited for playing a pivotal role in the transition from Abstract Expressionism to Color Field painting and is best known for her invention of the soak-stain technique. Throughout a career spanning more than six decades, Frankenthaler experimented tirelessly, producing unique paintings on canvas and paper, as well as ceramics, sculpture, tapestry, and especially printmaking. Frankenthaler’s substantial body of work continues to make a profound impact on contemporary art and is represented in major collections worldwide, and has been the subject of numerous solo museum exhibitions, including the Jewish Museum, New York (1960); Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (1969); Works on Paper 1949–1984, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (1985); A Paintings Retrospective, Museum of Modern Art, New York (1989) and Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Texas (1989–90); Prints, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC (1993); Paintings on Paper (1949–2002), Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami, FL (2003); Pittura/Panorama: Paintings by Helen Frankenthaler, 1952–1992, Museo di Palazzo Grimani, Venice (2019); Radical Beauty, Dulwich Picture Gallery, London (2021–22); and Painterly Constellations, Kunsthalle Krems, Krems an der Donau, Austria (2022, traveled to Museum Folkwang, Essen, Germany, 2022–23).
Complete biographical information can be found at gagosian.com and frankenthalerfoundation.org.
About the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation
Established and endowed by Helen Frankenthaler during her lifetime, the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation advances the artist’s legacy and inspires a new generation of practitioners through a range of philanthropic, educational, and research initiatives. Since becoming active in 2013, the Foundation has continued to strategically expand its program, which includes organizing and supporting significant exhibitions of the artist’s work, fostering new research and publications, advancing educational programs in partnership with arts organizations around the world, and launching groundbreaking initiatives that foster systemic change in the field. As a primary resource on the artist, and a steward of her collection and archive, the Foundation holds an extensive selection of Frankenthaler’s work in a variety of mediums, her collection of works by other artists, and original papers and materials pertaining to her life and work.
About the book Publisher: Gagosian, in collaboration with Helen Frankenthaler Foundation Distributor: Rizzoli International Publications, New York Publication date: September 2024 Contributors: John Elderfield Designer: Katy Homans, New York Printer: Pureprint Group, Uckfield, England Format: Hardcover Dimensions: 11 1/8 × 11 5/8 inches (28.3 × 29.5 cm) Pages: 472 Language: English
ISBN: 978-0-8478-4126-4 BUY HERE
John Elderfield, Frankenthaler (New York: Gagosian, in collaboration with Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, 2024)
