This fall, The Block presents “Pouring, Spilling, Bleeding: Helen Frankenthaler and Artists’ Experiments on Paper,” an exhibition that explores how artists have used printmaking — and works on paper more broadly — as a site for experimentation, improvisation and aesthetic risk. The exhibition centers on the pioneering print practice of Helen Frankenthaler (1928–2011), whose lithographs, etchings and woodcuts reflect a dynamic, process-oriented approach which she described as “pouring, flooding, spilling, bleeding.”
The exhibition debuts a gift of 34 works from the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, part of the Frankenthaler Prints Initiative, which supports university museums through the donation of prints and working proofs along with funding for interpretation and public engagement. At The Block, this gift is presented in dialogue with over 30 works from the museum’s collection by artists who similarly embraced chance, accident and aesthetic surprise — including Grace Hartigan, Joan Mitchell, Robert Motherwell, David Smith, John Cage, Kikuo Saito, Lynda Benglis, Amy Sillman and Max Gimblett.
Curated by Stephanie S. E. Lee, 2024-25 Block Museum graduate fellow in art history, and Corinne Granof, academic curator, the exhibition draws on in-depth research, including time spent in the Frankenthaler Foundation archives. A full suite of working proofs for “Divertimento” (1983) highlights Frankenthaler’s collaborative printmaking process and her openness to visual discovery.
For more information, click here.
