About this artwork
This painting was created by pouring thinned down paint onto an unprimed canvas on the floor. These translucent washes of colour became part of the canvas weave, instead of the paint lying on the surface. This technique was admired by the critic Clement Greenberg, who praised Frankenthaler for the Modernist flatness of her paintings. Saturn was painted the year after the artist had changed to using acrylic paint from oils, in order to achieve a richer and more radiant colour. Although abstract, the areas of colour in the painting call to mind a planetary landscape, as the title suggests.
Updated before 2020
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artist:Helen Frankenthaler (1928 - 2011) American
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title:Saturn
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date created:1963
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materials:Acrylic on canvas
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measurements:264.20 x 119.50 cm
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object type:
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credit line:Purchased 1972
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accession number:GMA 1258
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gallery:
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subject:
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glossary:
Helen Frankenthaler
Helen Frankenthaler
Helen Frankenthaler was born in New York and studied in New York and at the Art Students' League in Vermont. She became associated with the Abstract Expressionist movement and was particularly influenced by Jackson Pollock. Her painting Mountains and Sea, made when she was just twenty-three years...