Most of Helen Frankenthaler’s works are laid out in landscape format. Lunar Avenue represents an exception with its slender vertical format with vertically aligned, gestural brushstrokes. It is possible that the painting was initially intended as a horizontal composition: if you tilt it 90 degrees to the right, an abstracted landscape is suddenly visible below the moon which shines through the lines of colour – a reference to the title of the painting.
Helen Frankenthaler (1928–2011)
Lunar Avenue, 1975
Currently exhibited: Yes (Gallery: Colour's Dimension)
Material: Acrylic paint on canvas
Size: 386,5 x 238 cm
Inv-Nr.: B_518
Image rights: VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn
Keywords:
Previous owner: Leo Castelli Gallery, New York; private collection, US East coast, around 1990s
Acquisition: Reinhard Ernst Collection, Christie’s, New York, 2020
In an interview with Julia Brown, Helen Frankenthaler spoke about associations that are awakened in the viewer simply by the orientation of the picture format: ‘Landscape is an appealing word for an abstract painter. When you look at an abstract landscape painting, you more or less unconsciously perceive nature or a horizon or a view. One is not likely to think of a figurative allusion, which would rather presuppose a portrait format. If one looks specifically for figures or landscapes in abstract paintings, it can sometimes interfere with one’s ability to discern their true quality.’ [1] Lunar Avenue represents an exception with its slender vertical format with vertically aligned, gestural brushstrokes. The tracks of paint begin in the lower left of the canvas and extend into an open area in the upper right of the painting.
Given that Frankenthaler painted her pictures on the floor and only decided on the final image section and orientation afterwards, it is conceivable that the painting was initially intended as a horizontal composition. In a studio photograph from 1975 for example, it can be seen leaning against the wall rotated by 180 degrees. If you tilt it 90 degrees to the right, an abstracted landscape is suddenly visible below the moon which shines through the lines of colour – a reference to the title of the painting. The vertical presentation of the painting alters the perspective to a bird’s eye view of a street or passageway. A year later, Sea Level was created, which is also part of the Reinhard Ernst Collection and serves as another example of a composition that is supposedly meant to be horizontal, but is actually a vertical painting.
[1] Helen Frankenthaler, in: Julia Brown: ‘A Conversation. Helen Frankenthaler and Julia Brown’, in: Helen Frankenthaler: Mountains and Sea and the Years After 1956–1959, New York 1998, pp. 35/36.
