Page 23 - Studio International - August 1965

exclude the possibility of sharpness, anger, satire. ton College, who painstakingly instilled the principles
PHOTO: ALEXANDER LIBERMAN
Lyricism merely expresses a concentrated need to bring of cubism. Yet, her first memory of awe in the face of
to light deeply felt emotion with least interference. painting was of Dali's melting watches in the Museum
In this sense, Frankenthaler's is a consistently lyrical of Modern Art. And, while still at college, she was
voice. She has for many years sought to displace the attracted to Kandinsky and Gorky. She had learned the
urgency of emotion by means of intense work-work rigours of cubism well, but they could not hold her.
that offers a vivid, highly personal symbolisation of the It was not too difficult for Frankenthaler to make the
kinds of experience that move her. transition from a small liberal college, where both the
Even in her initial choices Frankenthaler expressed her practise and theory of the arts were under constant
lyrical temperament. She was trained well. first in high discussion, to the New York milieu where the artists'
school by Rufino Tamayo who taught her techniques club was in full action; where Pollock had become a
and was the first, as she says, to make her see that hero; where the big conversation was about abstract
painting could be a life; later by Paul Feeley, at Benning- expressionism. Her reaction to Pollock's 1951 exhibi-
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