Ashes and Embers

Applying paint directly to the surface of the unprimed canvas, Helen Frankenthaler creates a diaphanous network of color which dances around the canvas, some pigments confronting the viewer directly, while others retract into the distance. This ‘push and pull’ effect, first theorized by Hans Hofmann suggests depth and movement in the picture as brighter colors ‘push’ towards the canvas’ surface and cooler colors ‘pull’ away. Three decades prior to this painting’s conception, Helen Frankenthaler spent the summer of 1950 studying under Hans Hofmann, a forefather of the Abstract Expressionist movement. In Provincetown, learning alongside Hofmann, Frankenthaler created both intimately scaled works as well as large canvases that evoke nature and the landscape.

Akin to the prolific British seascape painter J.M.W Turner, Frankenthaler conjures the sublime in her paintings. In Ashes and Embers, the lively bursts of color synchronize in a muted harmony: stained black, white and pink fuse together in a frenetic eruption of energy. Flashes of white and bright pink accent the composition. Evoking the instantaneous as well as the infinite, Frankenthaler believed that, “a really good picture looks as if it's happened at once. It's an immediate image” (H. Frankenthaler, quoted by J. Babington, "Against the grain: the woodcuts of Helen Frankenthaler."Artonview, vol. 44, pp. 22–27). The painting’s sheer magnitude in addition to its depth of color, bestow upon the viewer a sense of awe and wonder, which rival the atmospheric sea-torn landscapes of Turner.