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50 Years of Groundbreaking Work: Kunstmuseum Basel Puts Helen Frankenthaler Front and Center

"We need to move beyond the mythology of tortured masculine genius through which Abstract Expressionism has so often been framed."

In 1950s New York, The Irascibles was the name given to a group of Abstract Expressionists who protested a “monster” exhibition at the Met, “American Painting Today—1950.” Eighteen artists signed the boycott, including Rothko, Motherwell, de Kooning and Pollock. Thus began the image-making of hard-hitting, hard-drinking, fierce, trailblazing male artists. Unfortunately, as so often in history, the women were left out except as support for the men—Lee Krasner with Pollock, and Elaine De Kooning with Willem. Fortunately, thanks in part to their famous husbands, some of these women were able to make names for themselves as artists. But the way has never been easy for women, in any field.

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That same year, in walked Helen Frankenthaler, an educated, wealthy young woman. Because she was beautiful and had the money to train as an artist and rent a large studio in New York, she caught the eye of the powerful art critic Clement Greenberg. During their nearly six years together, they often went to see exhibitions. In 1956, she separated from Greenberg and traveled to Europe, visiting museums. Her work became freer and more self-confident—not surprising, as she was no longer under his opinionated eye. She married Robert Motherwell in 1958, one of the Irascibles and a famous artist in his own right. She remained with him for 13 years, and throughout that time, they each retained their individual studios. During this period, in 1960, she received her first retrospective at the Jewish Museum. She was 31.

Being beautiful and wealthy certainly opened many doors for Frankenthaler, but that is not the real story. Because she had family money, she could be independent, work in her own studio on her own terms, get the training she felt she needed and arrive in New York when the art scene was charged with vigor and innovation. We also need to consider what the men in her life took from her—not just as an attractive appendage, but because she was extremely........

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