Object number2010.6.1

Cameo

Date1980

Artist Helen Frankenthaler (American, 1928 - 2011)

Publisher Tyler Graphics

CultureAmerican

MediumEight-color woodcut printed from five woodblocks on gray-pink TGL handmade paper

EditionEdition 50 of 51

DimensionsImage: 41 1/2 x 32 in. (105.4 x 81.3 cm)
Matted: 47 1/2 x 37 1/8 in. (120.6 x 94.3 cm)

Credit LineGift of Lynn G. Straus, class of 1946

Period20th c

Classification(s)

SignedOn recto, signed lower right in pencil: Frankenthaler

InscribedOn recto, lower right in pencil: 50/51 [signature]. On verso, lower right in pencil: HF80-510.

MarkingsOn recto, stamped lower left: [Tyler Graphics Ltd., Bedford, New York blind stamp]

Catalogue raisonnéHarrison 75BibliographyFine, Ruth. Helen Frankenthaler: Prints. Washington D.C/New York: National Gallery of Art/Harry N. Adams, Inc., 1993, cat. 41, pp. 22-23

Vassar Exhibitions

A Living Legacy: Gifts from Lynn Gross Straus

Label TextHelen Frankenthaler is best known for “stain painting,” in which paint is poured directly onto unprimed canvas and allowed to soak into the fiber of the cloth. Although the artist did not make her first woodcuts until the 1970s, the prints display her same preoccupations with medium, color, and naturalism. Overlaid with pink and blue ink, the salmon-colored paper of Cameo creates the depth achieved by mid-century Abstract Expressionist painters through the application of many layers of paint to canvas. As the master-printmaker Kenneth Tyler noted when working with Frankenthaler on this print, “It was apparent from the beginning that what was needed was a new approach and technique for making what Helen strove for: a woodcut with painterly resonance.”

Object information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge. To help improve this record, please email loebcollections@vassar.edu