Helen Frankenthaler Quotes

• There are no rules. That is how art is born, how breakthroughs happen. Go against the rules or ignore the rules. That is what invention is about.

  Helen Frankenthaler

  Inspirational, Art, Breaking Rules

  148 Copy quote

• There are no rules. Let the picture lead you where it must go.

  Helen Frankenthaler

  "ART/ARCHITECTURE; Helen Frankenthaler, Back to the Future" by Ted Loos, www.nytimes.com. April 27, 2003.

  49 Copy quote

• I'd rather risk an ugly surprise than rely on things I know I can do.

  Helen Frankenthaler

  Risk, Ugly, Surprise

  Helen Frankenthaler, Barbara Rose (1970*). “Frankenthaler”

  74 Copy quote

• Every canvas is a journey all its own.

  Helen Frankenthaler

  Journey, Canvas

  48 Copy quote

• You have to know how to use the accident, how to recognise it, how to control it, and ways to eliminate it so that the whole surface looks felt and born all at once.

  Helen Frankenthaler

  Looks, Use, Way

  84 Copy quote

• Art has a will of its own. It has nothing to do with the taste of the moment or what's expected of you. That's a formula for dead art, or fashionable art.

  Helen Frankenthaler

  Art, Taste, Moments

  87 Copy quote

• In relations with people, as in art, if you always stick to style, manners, and what will work, and you're never caught off guard, then some beautiful experiences never happen.

  Helen Frankenthaler

  Beautiful, Art, People

  61 Copy quote

• A really good picture looks as if it's happened at once. It's an immediate image. For my own work, when a picture looks labored and overworked, and you can read in it as well - she did this and then she did that; there is something in it that has not got to do with beautiful art to me. And I usually throw these out, though I think very often it takes ten of those over-labored efforts to produce one really beautiful wrist motion that is synchronized with your head and heart, and you have it, and therefore it looks as if it were born in a minute.

  Helen Frankenthaler

  Beautiful, Art, Thinking

  "Frankenthaler". Book by Barbara Rose, 1970.

  71 Copy quote

• I follow the rules until I go against them all.

  Helen Frankenthaler

  1993 On translating her large, lyrical abstracts from paintings to prints. In the Washington Times, 16 Apr.

  47 Copy quote

• I had the landscape in my arms as I painted it. I had the landscape in my mind and shoulder and wrist.

  Helen Frankenthaler

  Mind, Landscape, Arms

  44 Copy quote

• I don't resent being a female painter. I don't exploit it. I paint.

  Helen Frankenthaler

  Female, Paint, Resent

  "Helen Frankenthaler, Abstract Painter Who Shaped a Movement, Dies at 83" by Grace Glueck, www.nytimes.com. December 27, 2011.

  43 Copy quote

• There are many accidents that are nothing but accidents-and forget it. But there are some that were brought about only because you are the person you are... you have the wherewithal, intelligence, and energy to recognize it and do something with it.

  Helen Frankenthaler

  Energy, Forget, Persons

  60 Copy quote

• One really beautiful wrist motion, that is synchronized with your head and heart, and you have it. It looks as if it were born in a minute.

  Helen Frankenthaler

  Beautiful, Heart, Looks

  29 Copy quote

• What concerns me when I work, is not whether the picture is a landscape, or whether it's pastoral, or whether somebody will see a sunset in it. What concerns me is - did I make a beautiful picture?

  Helen Frankenthaler

  Beautiful, Sunset, Landscape

  "Artful Survivor". Interview with Deborah Salomon, www.nytimes.com. May 14, 1989.

  44 Copy quote

• I wanted things that I couldn't at times articulate.

  Helen Frankenthaler

  Wanted

  29 Copy quote

• I don't start with a color order, but find the colors as I go.

  Helen Frankenthaler

  Order, Color

  35 Copy quote

• Every so often every artist feels, 'I'll never paint again. The muse has gone out the window.' In 1985, I hardly painted at all for three months, and it was agonizing. I looked at reproductions. I stared at Matisse. I stared at the Old Masters. I stared at the Quattrocento. And I thought to myself - Don't push it! If you try too hard to get at something, you almost push it away.

  Helen Frankenthaler

  Artist, Trying, Three

  "Artful Survivor". Interview with Deborah Salomon, www.nytimes.com. May 14, 1989.

  49 Copy quote

• Whatever the medium, there is the difficulty, challenge, fascination and often productive clumsiness of learning a new method: the wonderful puzzles and problems of translating with new materials.

  Helen Frankenthaler

  Challenges, Fascination, Clumsiness

  Helen Frankenthaler, Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute (1980). “Helen Frankenthaler prints, 1961-1979”, HarperCollins

  27 Copy quote

• A picture that is beautiful, or that comes off, or that works, looks as if it was all made at one stroke.

  Helen Frankenthaler

  Beautiful, Looks, Made

  1972 Quoted in Ian Crofton (ed) A Dictionary of Art Quotations (1988).

  43 Copy quote

• What has made it work, or what makes certain paintings successful or not, has to do with my being a painter and a thinking, feeling person, more than my sex, color, height, origin.

  Helen Frankenthaler

  Sex, Successful, Thinking

  41 Copy quote

• The price for living the life I have -- for any serious, devoted person, is that at times one must live alone, or feel alone. I think loneliness is associated in many people's minds when they think about success.

  Helen Frankenthaler

  Loneliness, Live Life, Thinking

  32 Copy quote

• I have always been concerned with painting that simultaneously insists on a flat surface and then denies it.

  Helen Frankenthaler

  Painting, Deny, Surface

  Julia Brown, Helen Frankenthaler, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (1998). “After Mountains and Sea: Frankenthaler 1956-1959”, Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation

  18 Copy quote

• A really good picture looks as if it's happened at once. It's an immediate image.

  Helen Frankenthaler

  Looks, Happened, Ifs

  Helen Frankenthaler, Barbara Rose (1970*). “Frankenthaler”

  29 Copy quote

• I've explored a variety of directions and themes over the years. But I think in my painting you can see the signature of one artist, the work of one wrist.

  Helen Frankenthaler

  Artist, Thinking, Years

  "Abstract Expressionism". Book by Barbara Hess, 2005.

  18 Copy quote

• The question of sex will take care of itself.

  Helen Frankenthaler

  Sex, Care, Take Care

  13 Copy quote

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