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A unique work, 1977, acrylic on paper, signed and dated ‘Frankenthaler ’77’ in pencil, 61 x 99 cm. (24 x 39 in.)
Helen Frankenthaler came of age in the midst of the avant-garde art scene in New York in the 1950s. From an early age she had a profound interest in understanding how painting worked and delighted in deconstructing Old Masters, creating her own lyrical abstract responses to them. Frankenthaler became a leading member of the second generation Abstract-Expressionists and although influenced by first generation artists like Willem de Kooning (1904-1997) and most significantly, Jackson Pollock (1912-1956), her own painterly style was a departure from theirs, expanding the possibilities of abstraction and eventually transitioning into Colour Field painting. Orient Express #6 is exemplary of her individual approach to painting with the use of thinned paint applied to pastel coloured paper from all sides to create floating fields of colour with interjections of bright pigments and open surface space.
