Lithograph on paper
Tate Collection
Works with images
General Collection
Collection
<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/helen-frankenthaler-1114" aria-label="More by Helen Frankenthaler" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">Helen Frankenthaler</a>
Mirabelle
Presented by Tyler Graphics Ltd in honour of Pat Gilmour, Tate Print Department 1974-7, 2004
abstraction
colour
emotions, concepts and ideas
food and drink
formal qualities
fruit, plum
gestural
non-representational
objects
spontaneity
<p>The second-generation Abstract Expressionist painter, Helen Frankenthaler has pursued printmaking since the early 1960s. She has continually tested the limits of the printed media with which she works, developing innovative means through which to express her distinctive abstract language. In her prints she aims to create ‘immediate images’, works which look as if they have ‘happened all at once’ (Frankenthaler quoted in Judith Goldman, <i>Frankenthaler: The Woodcuts</i>, exhibition catalogue, Naples Museum of Art, Florida, 2002, p.4).</p>
paper print lithograph
15 November 2004 – 10 April 2005
2005-04-10
15 November 2004 – 3 April 2005
2005-04-03
2004-11-15
Tate Liverpool (Liverpool, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/liverpool/
2004-11-15
Tyler Gift
Collection based display
Mirabelle
image: 764 × 942 mm
Presented by Tyler Graphics Ltd in honour of Pat Gilmour, Tate Print Department 1974-7, 2004
<p>The second-generation <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/a/abstract-expressionism" title="Glossary definition for 'Abstract Expressionism'"></a><a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/a/abstract-art" title="Glossary definition for 'Abstract art'"><span>Abstract</span></a> Expressionist painter, Helen Frankenthaler has pursued <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/print" title="Glossary definition for 'Print'"><span>printmaking</span></a> since the early 1960s. She has continually tested the limits of the printed <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/m/medium" title="Glossary definition for 'Medium'"><span>media</span></a> with which she works, developing innovative means through which to express her distinctive abstract language. In her prints she aims to create ‘immediate images’, works which look as if they have ‘happened all at once’ (Frankenthaler quoted in Judith Goldman, <i>Frankenthaler: The Woodcuts</i>, exhibition catalogue, Naples Museum of Art, Florida, 2002, p.4). 
<br/>
<br/><i>Mirabelle </i>was produced at the studio of Tyler Graphics Ltd in an <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/e/edition" title="Glossary definition for 'Edition'"><span>edition</span></a> of 56 including 14 artist’s proofs, of which Tate’s version is number nine. This print is named for its rich purple colour – the Mirabelle being a type of plum. However, the essentially <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/m/monochrome" title="Glossary definition for 'Monochrome'"><span>monochromatic</span></a> scheme of the print belies the numerous colours which were used in its printing. One stone was used for the background hue, while nineteen aluminium plates were used to print twenty-three subsequent colours in the following order: white; blue; light blue; light green; light red; red; grey; dark red; pink; violet; black; red-black; transparent black; yellow, orange and green; blue and dark blue; transparent magenta and light purple; dark magenta and transparent brown; transparent light green. 
<br/>
<br/>The multiple layering of colours combined with the apparently loose handling of the printing <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/i/ink" title="Glossary definition for 'Ink'"><span>ink</span></a> seem to defy the complex processes involved in its production. The immediacy suggested by the <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/i/impasto" title="Glossary definition for 'Impasto'"><span>painterly</span></a> image appears at odds with the laborious and indirect processes involved in printmaking. Indeed, as one art historian has pointed out: ‘Frankenthaler’s art relies on big gestures, intuition, and the drama of the unexpected. That she ever made prints at all is remarkable. That she made a significant contribution to the graphic arts ... is even more remarkable.’ (Judith Goldman, <i>Frankenthaler: The Woodcuts</i>, Naples, Florida 2002, p. 4.) 
<br/>
<br/>Frankenthaler often creates works in which the image spills beyond the framework of the printing plate or stone. Here, she has framed the image in a band of black which encloses and contains the abstract <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/c/composition" title="Glossary definition for 'Composition'"><span>composition</span></a>. The format is distinctly horizontal, which, along with the sun-like circle of red and band of white across the lower part of the print may be suggestive of a landscape. However, while landscapes have certainly informed the artist’s work, this influence has been viewed by commentators in terms of the compositional structure of <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/l/landscape" title="Glossary definition for 'Landscape'"><span>landscape</span></a> rather than a depiction of a particular environment or place. Frankenthaler regularly integrates particular motifs into her work, such as the ghost-like <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/f/form" title="Glossary definition for 'Form'"><span>form</span></a> which floats across the centre of the sheet. Circular forms, for example, have featured in her work since the mid-1980s.
<br/>
<br/><b>Further reading:</b>
<br/>Ruth E. Fine, <i>Helen Frankenthaler: Prints</i>, Washington 1993.
<br/>Suzanne Boorsch ‘Conversations with Prints’, <i>Frankenthaler: A Catalogue Raisonné: Prints 1961-1994</i>, New York 1996.
<br/>
<br/>Lucy Askew
<br/>August 2005</p>

Summary
2005-12-22T00:00:00
summary
SHORT_TEXT
abstraction colour emotions, concepts and ideas food and drink formal qualities fruit, plum gestural non-representational objects spontaneity