As a second generation Abstract Expressionist, Frankenthaler was strongly influenced by the work of Gorky, Pollack and de Kooning, yet she sought a unique means of personal expression. The breakthrough occurred in 1952, after a summer spent painting watercolors in the Canadian Maritimes. These paintings, abstract landscapes of the Nova Scotia coast, inspired an unconventional merging of the fluid translucency of watercolor with the gestural qualities of Abstract Expressionism.

Working on the floor of her New York studio, Frankenthaler devised a unique technique using oil paint thinned to a watery consistency and alternately pouring and dripping the paint onto an unsized, unprimed canvas. As paint and plaster become one in the... [View Full Biography]