Recreating the Colour Palette of Helen Frankenthaler

Helen Frankenthaler (1928-2011) was an acclaimed artist and colourist, whose inventive art techniques transformed the possibilities of what abstract painting could be. Frankenthaler’s career spanned six decades, though it is said to have officially begun in 1952, with her creation of the soak-stain technique. Through her career, her use of colour shifts and develops, yet every artwork is still bursting with rich colours. This article discusses Frankenthaler’s treatment of colour and puts together three palettes inspired by her paintings.

Helen Frankenthaler in her Studio, New York, 1956.
Photo credit: Gordon Parks

Abstract Expressionism and the Soak-stain Technique

To understand Frankenthaler, we must first get to know the art movement, Abstract Expressionism which arose in New York in the 1940s, after World War II. Influenced by the Surrealist idea that art should come from the unconscious mind, the Abstract Expressionists aimed to make art that was a pure expression of emotion. Amongst the style, are two broad groupings: action painters, like Jackson Pollock, who created spontaneous and large mark makings, and colour field painters like Mark Rothko, painting flat planes of colour.

Helen Frankenthaler sits in the midst of this. Morris Louis once described her as “a bridge between Pollock and what was possible”, meaning that she was influenced by his expressive mark makings, but imbued it with a fresh outlook. Here, he is referring to her soak-stain technique which she invented in 1952. This is the process of pouring turpentine thinned oil paint from coffee cans onto an unprimed canvas on the floor. This meant that the thinned oil paint would permeate the canvas, creating pools of bright colours, allowing the colours to bleed into, and through each other.

Pouring oil paint diluted with low odour solvent directly onto canvas

Colours interacting on the canvas

The following palettes are inspired by some of Frankenthaler’s artworks. They have been swatched on both oil or acrylic painting paper (which is relatively non-absorbent) and raw canvas (which is extremely absorbent) to explore how Frankenthaler harnessed the effect that surface absorbency has on colour.

Colour Palette One:

Alizarin Crimson, Yellow Ochre, Cobalt Blue and Viridian Green

Palette One, oil paint on oil painting paper.
From top, left to right:
Yellow Ochre and Alizarin Crimson
Alizarin Crimson and Cobalt Blue (plus Titanium White)
Cobalt Blue and Yellow Ochre

This colour palette is inspired by Frankenthaler’s 1952 artworks, the first artworks in which she used her radical, new soak-stain technique. Frankenthaler’s use of colour in these early artworks is fascinating as the bright colours she has chosen have transformed into paler versions of themselves. This is due to the amount of turpentine used to thin them down, as well as the unprimed canvas which is highly absorbent so makes the colour appear more muted. Due to this, it was difficult to imagine what colours Frankenthaler may have used, so I experimented with her technique (which I would definitely recommend trying out!)

Palette One with dilute acrylic paint on unprimed canvas

Mountains and Sea is the perfect example of Frankenthaler’s treatment of colour in the beginning of her soak-stain technique. The painting is based on her memory of the Nova Scotia seacoast in Canada. The depiction of the coastline is visible through the Cobalt Blue and Viridian Green sea crashing into and in between the firm Alizarin Crimson shapes of the bouldered coast. The complementing, pale pinks and greens, with the Cobalt Blue, all almost Cezanne-esque in their pale tones, evoke a softness in the composition, as they are all evenly spread around the canvas, each one taking up the same space as the next. There are visible charcoal guideposts that were made prior to pouring the thinned paints. This shows a surprising control, or hesitancy over a technique that seems like it should be more free and fluid, like other action painting techniques. As she settled into her new-found technique, the charcoal guides were gone, and more colours were added to the palette.

Mountains and Sea, 1952
Helen Frankenthaler
Oil and charcoal on unsized, unprimed canvas, 219.4 x 297.8 cm | 86.3 x 117.4 in
Helen Frankenthaler Foundation

Colour Palette Two:

French Ultramarine Blue, Cobalt Blue Hue, Bone Black, Naples Yellow Hue and Magenta

Palette Two, acrylic paint on acrylic painting paper.
From top, left to right:
French Ultramarine and Bone Black
Cobalt Blue and Bone Black
Naples Yellow (hue) and French Ultramarine
Naples Yellow (hue), French Ultramarine, and Bone Black
Magenta and French Ultramarine

This colour palette is based around a series of artworks Frankenthaler made in the summer of 1974. The series, Sea Change, marks the time she spent in Connecticut by the water, which is visible by all the blue paints used. There is a big change in Frankenthaler’s approach to colour, which can be seen in two ways. Firstly, she made a switch to acrylic paints in 1962, to allow her to achieve a richer, more saturated colour. Secondly, she has filled the canvases with colour, leaving barely any space unmarked. This presents her movement towards Colour Field painting.

Palette Two with dilute acrylic on unprimed canvas.

Ocean Drive West is the first of this series, and displays a canvas filled with a bright Ultramarine Blue. Using tape, she has cordoned off areas of unprimed canvas and made dry and thin horizontal strokes of bright colours, which can be recreated by using a Magenta, Cadmium Orange and Bone Black. This presents a transitional, but at the same time unifying movement from action painting to colour field painting, as the horizontal action painting lines attempt to swim through the colour field abyss of blue.

Ocean Drive West #1, 1974
Helen Frankenthaler
Acrylic on canvas, 238.8 x 365.8 cm | 94 x 144 in
Helen Frankenthaler Foundation

Another artwork from the series, Blue Bellows, was painted just two years after Ocean Drive West, but her treatment of colour is visibly different as her palette has become even more limited. This colour palette is made purely of blues, and can be recreated using Ultramarine Blue, Cobalt Blue and a Prussian Blue for the darkest parts of the painting.

Colour Palette Three:

Manganese Violet, Prussian Blue, Cadmium Orange and Titanium White

Palette Three, oil paint on oil painting paper.
From top, left to right:
Manganese Violet and Prussian Blue (plus Titanium White)
Cadmium Orange and Prussian Blue (plus Titanium White)
Cadmium Orange and Manganese Violet

In this colour palette, I picked three strong and complementing colours that Frankenthaler has used in her colour field paintings. Even though she didn’t mix a lot of colours together in her later paintings, I thought it would be interesting to see what it would look like.

Palette Three with acrylic on unprimed canvas

Cloud Burst is one of Frankenthaler’s later works, and is a prime example of her movement towards colour field painting. This artwork can be recreated using a limited palette of Cadmium Orange, Titanium White and a Bone Black mixed with a Prussian Blue. Interestingly, although the whole canvas is filled, there is still a nod to her old painting style, as the turpentine that has been added to the acrylic Cadmium Orange has created this wash of orange that is in competition with the dark blue-black colour emerging from the top of the canvas.

Cloud Burst, 2002
Helen Frankenthaler
Acrylic on canvas, 201.3 x 173.4 cm | 79.2 x 68.2 in
Helen Frankenthaler Foundation

Frankenthaler’s palettes show us how even though her style of art developed and ultimately changed through her life, from action painting to colour field painting, her trope of bright, but washed-out colours always remained the same. Her love of colour bursts out of every painting she’s made, even if she’s only used two colours to make it!

Further Reading

Recreating Rembrandt’s Colour Palette With Modern Pigments

Underpainting in Oil and Acrylic

The History of Potter’s Pink (and Why It’s a Watercolourist’s Secret Weapon)

The Unexpected History of Payne’s Grey

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