Blue Jay
Artist: Helen Frankenthaler (American, 1928-2011)
Date: 1963
Dimensions:
Painting: 44 3/16 × 64 1/8 in. (112.2 × 162.9 cm)
Frame: 45 1/2 × 65 1/4 × 2 in. (115.6 × 165.7 × 5.1 cm)
Medium: Oil on canvas.
Classification: Paintings
Credit Line: Gift of The Woodward Foundation
Object number: 1977.52
Label Text:“A line, color, shapes, spaces, all do one thing for and within themselves, and yet do something else, in relation to everything that is going on within the four sides [of the canvas]. A line is a line, but [also] is a color…. It does this here, but that there. The canvas surface is flat and yet the space extends for miles. What a lie, what trickery—how beautiful is the very idea of painting.” –Helen Frankenthaler
Abstract Expressionist painter Helen Frankenthaler was a significant figure in the postwar American art scene, rising to prominence in the 1950s. By the 1960s, Frankenthaler increasingly utilized a technique she referred to as “soak stain,” resulting in a watercolor-like appearance as seen in Blue Jay. This is achieved by painting directly onto an unprimed canvas with turpentine-diluted oil paints, which influenced artists such as Kenneth Noland and Morris Louis and led the way for Color Field painting (which, as its name suggests, is a movement within Abstract Expressionism characterized by large areas of color).
Abstract Expressionist painter Helen Frankenthaler was a significant figure in the postwar American art scene, rising to prominence in the 1950s. By the 1960s, Frankenthaler increasingly utilized a technique she referred to as “soak stain,” resulting in a watercolor-like appearance as seen in Blue Jay. This is achieved by painting directly onto an unprimed canvas with turpentine-diluted oil paints, which influenced artists such as Kenneth Noland and Morris Louis and led the way for Color Field painting (which, as its name suggests, is a movement within Abstract Expressionism characterized by large areas of color).
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