Helen Frankenthaler, an Early Pioneer of the Stained-Canvas Method

FROM PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

A protean abstract expressionist painter, Helen Frankenthaler can be tender and delicate, powerfully archetypal, explosively lyrical, quietly introspective or mystically transcendental. Her splashy, symbol-laden Eden (1956) seems to conjure up the gates of paradise itself. Her loose, evocative 1950s style, a synthesis of Gorky, de Kooning and Pollock, gave way to '60s color-field experiments a la Mark Rothko, followed by witty, complex, ambivalent metaphors of the '70s and explorations in ceramic tile, steel or clay sculpture, and works on paper. She can pack more meaning into one daub of color than do many artists into an entire canvas, and this volume's (1989) plates of incomparable quality render visible the texture and hue of the paint. [Amazon.com]