Air Frame, from the portfolio New York Ten

Helen Frankenthaler was a female pioneer in the male-dominated Abstract Expressionist movement, inventing the soak-stain technique, in which a thin wash of paint is poured directly onto an unprimed canvas to create floating fields of color. Frankenthaler’s revolutionary approach offered an alternative to the gestural method practiced by her male counterparts like Jackson Pollock, who splattered or dripped paint onto a canvas through a series of quick movements.

Frankenthaler initially explored printmaking at the recommendation of her artist-friends, namely Grace Hartigan. Accustomed to creating paintings through spontaneous, diaphanous applications of color, Frankenthaler had to alter her artistic process to register and print three different screens of blue, dark green, and yellow ink to produce Air Frame, her first silkscreen. Air Frame was printed for the portfolio New York Ten, which features works by other major artists like Jim Dine, Roy Lichtenstein, and Claes Oldenburg. Frankenthaler was the only woman included in this project.