Helen Frankenthaler was 23, only three years out of Bennington, when she developed her richly colored, radiant whirls and whorls of “stain” paintings. She’d seen Jackson Pollock’s “black-and-white” stain paintings, and adapted them, in 1952, to create her own idiom by greatly thinning out her paints and spreading them in broad swaths, curves Read More
The exhibition of abstract drawings by Porfirio DiDonna (1942-1986), organized for the Wooster Arts Space by the critic Karen Wilkin, is among the most heartbreaking I’ve seen. I recommend it, though the work may be too specialized to appeal to a general audience. DiDonna has been described as a “painter’s painter,” a label that’s likely Read More
Abstract Works
Of Heartbreaking Gravity
The exhibition of abstract drawings by Porfirio DiDonna (1942-1986), organized for the Wooster Arts Space by the critic Karen Wilkin, is among the most heartbreaking I’ve seen. I recommend it, though the work may be too specialized to appeal to a general audience. DiDonna has been described as a Read More
I’ve been trying to avoid writing about Summer in the City: High in the 60′s , an exhibition currently on view at Ameringer/Howard/Yohe. It’s a show that has a lot going against it. First of all, there’s the title: I don’t mind the Lovin’ Spoonful reference, but alluding to the era’s drug culture is too Read More
Around certain paintings there accumulates a historical aura that makes them even more of a legend than the artists who create them. One such picture is Mountains and Sea , which Helen Frankenthaler painted in October 1952, following a summer visit to Nova Scotia. The artist, who had had her first solo exhibition at the Read More
