The Bowdoin College Museum of Art is delighted to announce that it was recently selected as one of ten academic art museums in the United States to receive a selection of prints by the artist Helen Frankenthaler in the inaugural year of the Frankenthaler Prints Initiative. The Museum received a selection of ten artist prints and eight artists proofs that serve as examples of the breadth of printmaking techniques Frankenthaler employed throughout her career. In addition to the artwork, the Museum is also eligible to receive a one-time grant of $25,000 “for the study, presentation, and interpretation of the works within a three-year timeframe.” The Museum looks forward to utilizing this new collection of Frankenthaler prints to serve the Bowdoin community and beyond.

Helen Frankenthaler (1928–2011) was a celebrated post-war abstract painter and printmaker who experimented with innovative artistic techniques and processes throughout her career. Often associated with Abstract Expressionism and the New York School, Frankenthaler had a unique style of gestural, abstract, and large-scale painting that included her own innovative “soak-stain” technique which emerged in the 1950s. Her “soak-stain” technique consisted of her thinning oil paint to a liquid form and allowing the paint to soak into the canvas surface, creating an expansive wash of color that did not simply rest on the surface of the painting, but became integrated in the canvas support. Her technique placed color, form, and texture at the forefront of her paintings, reducing the illusion of depth by expressing the forms on a singular plane. This new collection of prints demonstrates her ability to translate these formal characteristics of color, line, and layering into a variety of printing techniques. The Museum is pleased to have been chosen for this generous gift and we look forward to sharing the works in the new year.