Now, this marriage is itself the subject of an exhibition, at the Upper East Side’s Mnuchin Gallery. oil and pasted papers on industrial corrugated cardboard
The cover photograph for the informative catalogue that accompanies this dazzling show was taken by Hans Namuth and catches Robert Motherwell and Helen Frankenthaler at their wedding lunch on April 6, 1958. Henceforth Frankenthaler would allude to places— Her look is all love; Motherwell, averting his gaze from Namuth, has a vacant, slightly ironic expression. Frankenthaler, who had just turned twenty-nine, was a rising star whose work was increasingly attracting attention and even beginning to influence older artists. We stand in solidarity with the uprising unfolding across the country following the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, Nina Pop, Jamel Floyd, and those affected by generations of structural violence against Black communities. Currently, a group of the couple’s works from the museum’s permanent collection are on display in neighboring galleries. Two of the Phillips’s most cherished Abstract Expressionist artists, Helen Frankenthaler and Robert Motherwell, shared more than a style of painting: they were also married from 1958 to 1971. Helen Frankenthaler and Robert Motherwell were married from 1958 to 1971. Motherwell's resources for self-education, mutual aid, and ongoing action in the struggle for racial justice Both were formed, established artists, with highly individual ways of making art, at the time of their whirlwind courtship, which began at the end of 1957. Competitive Collaboration: Frankenthaler & Motherwell at MnuchinHelen Frankenthaler and Robert Motherwell: The Art of Marriage On August 4, the exhibition “Abstract Climates: Helen Frankenthaler in Provincetown” will go on view at the Parrish Art Museum in Water Mill, New York, featuring paintings, photographs, and archival materials from a period when Frankenthaler and her then husband, painter Robert Motherwell, would head to Provincetown for the summer. Both were formed, established artists, with highly individual ways of making art, at the time of their whirlwind courtship, which began at the end of 1957. The disparity is insignificant, because the development of each artist's personal style is fully on view here, and neither possesses the lion's share of wall space. Both were formed, established artists, with highly individual ways of making art, at the time of their whirlwind courtship, which began at the end of 1957. With a catalogue essay by our own Karen Wilkin, the exhibition considers the symbiotic aesthetic relationship between Motherwell and Frankenthaler—how the marriage might have influenced the paintings—even as both remained resolutely independent artists at the heights of their powers. But it is Frankenthaler's evolution that is the more fascinating, perhaps because it seems more entirely a matter of her personal will, while Motherwell's development seems to be more a matter of his understanding the relationships between his intellect and influences, his experience and his artistic expression. We first encounter a small, 12 × 8 inch mixed-media-on-paper piece by Frankenthaler. Recognizable figures are rare in the works by Frankenthaler shown here—two small collages from 1958 and 1959 contain expressionistic faces, one human, the other a cat.
The small drawing would seem to be a farewell to representation. Of the 29 works included in the show, 16 are by Motherwell and 13 by Frankenthaler. They were almost certainly aware of each other’s work, since even though they had never really connected, they had traveled in the same aesthetic circles. As she moves into the ’60s, as we see here in Her look is all love; Motherwell, averting his gaze from Namuth, has … Was he thinking that the 13 year age difference might eventually become a problem?
Helen Frankenthaler and Robert Motherwell were married from 1958 to 1971. oil and pasted papers on industrial corrugated cardboard Of the 29 works included in the show, 16 are by Motherwell and 13 by Frankenthaler.
While Frankenthaler is shown evolving, Motherwell’s work in 1958 is fully formed. After all, when Motherwell made his trip to Mexico with Roberto Matta in 1941, where the first major exposition of Surrealism was taking place, Frankenthaler was 12 years old, a student at Dalton School, where she would be influenced by Rufino Tamayo. Helen Frankenthaler and Robert Motherwell were married from 1958 to 1971. Motherwell, forty-two when their romance began, was the youngest of the First Generation Abstract Expressionists, but one of the most distinguished, connected with the Surrealists, a veteran of Peggy Guggenheim’s gallery, known as a writer and translator, as well as a painter, and someone whose work Frankenthaler admired. Was it because he'd already been married twice and knew that even marriages seemingly made in heaven like this one can have an expiration date? Since the marriage began in 1958, the earliest works included by both are from that year. Both Motherwell and Frankenthaler indulged in collage and in doing so produced some of their wittiest and downright funny work. This exhibition of two twentieth-century titans is not to be missed.