A conversation about the art and life of Helen Frankenthaler
Date: Saturday, April 18, 2026, 11 a.m. – 12.30 p.m.
Location: Neubau
Participation free of charge, ticket required via ticket link
Helen Frankenthaler (1928–2011) was a remarkable and pioneering painter whose work shaped postwar abstract painting in the United States. She gained recognition in the 1950s for her innovative soak-stain technique, in which she applied thinned paint directly onto canvas laid on the floor. This approach inspired the development of Color Field painting and influenced a generation of artists. Frankenthaler continued to evolve her practice throughout her life, yet her work remains relatively little known, particularly in Europe.
In conversation with experts and those who knew her personally, the discussion will explore the significance of her work, the trajectory of her life, and the reception of her art.
Speakers include Douglas Dreishpoon (Director of the Catalogue Raisonné Project at the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation), Mary Gabriel (Art Historian) and Karen Wilkin (Curator and Art Critic). The event is welcomed by Daniel Kurjaković (Curator of Programmes) and moderated by Anita Haldemann (Curator and Head of Art and Research).
Photo: Tom Loonan
Douglas Dreishpoon, chief curator emeritus at the Buffalo AKG Art Museum, consulting editor at the Brooklyn Rail, and a practicing jazz drummer and percussionist, currently directs the Helen Frankenthaler catalogue raisonné project. His essays, interviews, and reviews have appeared in Art in America, Art Journal, Art News, Archives of American Art Journal, Sculpture, and The Brooklyn Rail. Recent exhibitions include Helen Frankenthaler: Painting Without Rules, Imperfections by Chance: Paul Feeley Retrospective, 1954-1966, and Nothing and Everything: Seven Artists, 1947–1962. Recent books include Helen Frankenthaler: Late Works, 1988–2009 and Modern Sculpture: Artists in Their Own Words, an anthology of sculptors’ writings for the Documents of Twentieth-Century Art series (both 2022). Dreishpoon holds a PhD from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.
Photo: Mike Habermann
Mary Gabriel is the author of five biographies, including Ninth Street Women, which won the 2022 NYU/Axxin Foundation Prize for narrative nonfiction and the 2019 Library of Virginia and Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Mary Lynn Kotz Award. Her 2011 book Love and Capital was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award; and her book, Madonna: A Rebel Life, was a finalist for the 2024 PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography. Mary was a Reuters journalist for nearly two decades, working mostly in Washington and London. She is currently writing a biography of the legendary art dealer Ileana Sonnabend. Mary lives in Ireland.
Photo: Kimberly Butler
Karen Wilkin is a New York-based curator and critic. Educated at Barnard College and Columbia University, she is the author of monographs on Stuart Davis, David Smith, Anthony Caro, Kenneth Noland, Helen Frankenthaler, Giorgio Morandi, Georges Braque, and Hans Hofmann, among others, and has organized exhibitions of their work internationally. She was a juror for the American Pavilion of the 2009 Venice Biennale and a contributing editor of the Stuart Davis and Hans Hofmann Paintings Catalogues Raisonné. A regular contributor to The New Criterion, Hudson Review, Hopkins Review, and the Wall Street Journal, she is a member of the Arshile Gorky Catalogue Raisonné review committee. Wilkin teaches in the New York Studio School’s MFA program.
This event has been made possible through the generous support of the ASOM Grant.
