The Block Museum of Art debuted 34 edition prints and working proofs by Helen Frankenthaler on Wednesday in its “Pouring, Spilling, Bleeding” exhibition.
The pieces were gifted to the museum by the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation. The Block was one of 10 university museums to receive the prints in 2023 — along with a $25,000 grant — as part of the foundation’s Frankenthaler Prints Initiative.
Frankenthaler was a well-known 20th-century American artist often recognized for her “soak-stain” technique when painting. She also experimented with other media, including printmaking.
The exhibition was curated by Academic Curator Corinne Granof and 2024-2025 Block Museum graduate fellow Stephanie S.E. Lee.
Both Granof and Lee were already familiar with Frankenthaler’s work, although more so with her paintings than her prints.
“I certainly had a passing familiarity with her work, but having this opportunity over the past year to learn more about her practice and her connections and her openness to experimentation, it has just been so impressive,” Granof said.
The curators spent about a year researching, planning and organizing the exhibition, which includes four sections.
The first section opens with works from Frankenthaler’s circle and network. The next section, “Divertimento,” features working proofs, trial proofs and a cancellation print illustrating the process behind the final “Divertimento” print.
Another section, titled “An Eye Toward East Asia,” focuses on artists who, similar to Frankenthaler, turned to East Asian art for inspiration. The final section shows an intergenerational network of artists who have been influenced by Frankenthaler.
The curators spent a few days in the foundation’s archives in New York to further research both Frankenthaler’s personal life and career.
There, they found handwritten business notes by John Hutcheson, who worked with Frankenthaler on “Divertimento.” The notes included information about phone calls with Frankenthaler, supplies that were purchased, the time it took to mix different shades and more, Lee said. These details helped Granof and Lee understand the process behind the prints.
The two also learned more about Frankenthaler’s network while researching for the exhibition. Alongside Frankenthaler’s own work, “Pouring, Spilling, Bleeding” also features work by some artists close to Frankenthaler.
The exhibition is made up almost entirely of works from the Block’s own collection, which is not always the case, according to the museum’s associate director of communications, marketing and digital strategy, Lindsay Bosch.
The Block has a collection of over six thousand artworks, with a general foundation in works on paper, she added.
“Our collection has a rich background of work in abstraction, of people who worked with Frankenthaler, of her contemporaries, and so we had a lot already existing that could speak to these works,” Bosch said.
Granof and Lee decided that the show would be centered around experiments, accidents and innovation, as Frankenthaler’s work embraced the idea of process and experimentation.
Frankenthaler described her approach as “pouring, flooding, spilling, bleeding” — which is where the exhibition got its title, Granof said.
As they started the curation process, Granof and Lee made a list of about 200 works from the Block’s collection to look through, Granof said. Once they narrowed the list down, they began pulling works out and determining whether they fit with their theme.
“It was really important for both of us to be able to see the works on the table next to each other to see what kind of effect they bring about,” Lee said.
The Block will host a series of public programs during the exhibition’s stay, including a keynote lecture and a panel of contemporary artists.
Even without the programming, Granof said she thinks the exhibition’s story will be evident to viewers. The story comes across visually, she said, and can be understood without reading a single label in the exhibit.
“Pouring, Spilling, Bleeding” opened Sept. 17 and will run until Dec. 14.
Above all else, Granof hopes the exhibition will help viewers appreciate Frankenthaler as an artist, while Lee said she hopes it helps viewers appreciate the medium.
“I want people to fall in love with works on paper,” Lee said. “I would love for people to see the show and take away the infinite possibilities of what you could do with the medium.”
Email: r.huizenga@dailynorthwestern.com
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