Helen Frankenthaler: Painting History, Writing Painting (New Encounters: Arts, Cultures, Concepts)

This extraordinary examination of the work of "color field" painter Helen Frankenthaler overturns assumptions about the artist, whose work has been burdened by its label as "the bridge between Pollock and what was possible". Trained as a painter, Alison Rowley brings a keen eye to Frankenthaler's paintings, returning to the fore, the artist's debt not only to Jackson Pollock, but also to Cezanne, and speculating for the first time as to her artistic responses to wider political events, in particular the Rosenberg trial. Making a fascinating case, too, for the connections between the "breakthrough" work "Mountains and Sea" and Lily Briscoe's painting in Virginia Woolf's novel To the Lighthouse, this beautifully written book provides crucial new insights into Frankenthaler's practice, as a painter who is also a woman. SERIES ANNOUNCEMENTNew Encounters: Arts, Cultures, ConceptsSeries Editor: Griselda PollockThis timely new series, with eminent art historian and cultural analyst Griselda Pollock as series editor, brings together major international commentators and also introduces a new generation of emerging scholars. Resisting both the rejection of theory and the current displacement of art history in favour of visual culture, New Encounters instead rejuvenate both approaches. Marked out by its critical engagement with and close informed readings of images, texts and cultural events, this series employs new feminist, postcolonial and queer perspectives. New Encounters also showcases exciting new volumes which revisit key figures in twentieth century art through highly original feminist approaches.