Helen Frankenthaler, 1928–2011

Helen Frankenthaler died just a few days ago, at 83.  The New York Times posted a comprehensive and sensitive obituary, including a fun anecdote:

“Ms. Frankenthaler’s passion for dancing was more than fulfilled in 1985 when, at a White House dinner to honor the Prince and Princess of Wales, she was partnered with a fast stepper who had been twirling the princess.’I’d waited a lifetime for a dance like this,’ she wrote in a 1997 Op-Ed article for The New York Times. ‘He was great!’ His name meant nothing to her until, on returning to her New York studio, she showed her assistant and a friend his card. “John Travolta,” it read.

The video below is my tribute to one of the few “lady painters” in the abstract expressionist milieu.