Helen Frankenthaler's "Tales of Genji I"

Helen Frankenthaler Tales of Genji I August–December 2020

Collection Spotlight Helen Frankenthaler Tales of Genji I, 1998 August–December 2020 Recently acquired by the museum, Helen Frankenthaler’s woodcut Tales of Genji I is a tour de force of printmaking and creative collaboration between the trailblazing twentiethcentury abstract painter and the master printmaker Kenneth Tyler. The large print, first in a series of six, is Frankenthaler’s visual meditation on the text and earliest illustrations of the eleventh-century novel The Tale of Genji written by Murasaki Shikibu, a lady-in-waiting in Japan’s imperial court. By focusing on the extraordinary processes used to produce the print, this exhibition highlights the artistic innovations made possible by ink, wood, and paper.

© 2020 Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, Inc./Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY/Tyler Graphics Ltd., Mount Kisco, NY

Helen Frankenthaler New York, NY 1928–Darien, CT 2011 Tales of Genji I Thirty-four-color woodcut from eleven woodblocks on light sienna TGL handmade paper, 1998 Sheldon Museum of Art, University of Nebraska–Lincoln, Olga N. Sheldon Acquisition Trust U-6898.2020

The Making of Tales of Genji I In 1995, Helen Frankenthaler made six paintings that served as the basis for the Tales of Genji series. Using her signature “soak-stain” method, the same process demonstrated in Red Frame (1964), which is on view in the Perry Gallery on the first floor, Frankenthaler poured diluted acrylic paint onto sheets of plywood, and exploited the wood’s natural absorbency to create richly layered compositions.

Working alongside Frankenthaler in the studio, Kenneth Tyler and his team of woodblock carvers, paper makers, and printers translated her paintings into woodcuts. For Tales of Genji I, woodblock carvers made eleven separate blocks from two different types of wood. They carved certain areas so the block would hold color and applied lacquer to others so they would repel ink. The printers then inked these eleven blocks with thirty-four different colors and carefully aligned each woodblock on specially made paper that mimicked the woodgrain of the plywood used to create Frankenthaler’s painting. This process required great precision, as any slight deviations in the registration, or how the blocks were lined up, would result in in the rejection and destruction of the sheet. To achieve the final edition of 30 prints, hundreds of imperfect prints were discarded.

Helen Frankenthaler in her studio, 1961. Photo by André Emmerich.

Frankenthaler and Printmaking Helen Frankenthaler is considered one of the most important abstract expressionist painters working in New York from the 1950s onwards. To create her nature-inspired paintings marked by flat planes of color, she would pour diluted pigments onto horizontal surfaces, such as unprimed canvases placed onto the floor of her studio. The colors would first pool on and then saturate into their support, maximizing the effects of this new process she called the “soak-stain” method. She thereby transformed the very idea of painting—paint could be embedded in the canvas, not simply adorn its surface. As part of the movement traditionally dominated by male voices, such as Jackson Pollock, Robert Motherwell, and others, she pioneered what would become known as Color Field painting, and influenced future generations of American artists through her attention to process.

While Frankenthaler is now best remembered for her innovative paintings, she was also a prolific printmaker. She made dozens of lithographs and woodcuts, even though her spontaneous painting practice might seem at odds with the methodical process of repeatedly making proofs. Her contributions to printmaking can be found in the transformational ways she worked with the woodblock. Instead of using traditional carving tools such as chisels, gouges, or knives, she worked the surface of the woodblock or plywood with sandpaper, bandsaws, and even dentist drills to create different effects for the final print.

The Tale of Genji For her print, Frankenthaler took as her inspiration the Japanese novel The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu, a lady-in-waiting at the Japanese imperial court. Published by 1022, the text follows the life of the fictional Prince Genji, a disowned son of an ancient emperor. It recounts his childhood as a commoner, his career as imperial soldier, and even his numerous love affairs. The novel’s popularity is evident in the many artworks inspired by it. One of the earliest surviving examples is a twelfth-century handscroll. A comparison between Frankenthaler’s print and images from the scroll indicates that she may have based her abstract interpretation on the palette of the Japanese paintings and their large, unmodulated planes of color achieved through the use of heavy, opaque pigments.

Artist unknown Eastern Cottage (東屋 Azumaya), Chapter 50 of The Tale of Genji Scroll (源氏 物語絵巻 Genji Monogatari Emaki) pigment on paper, circa 1120–1140 Tokugawa Art Museum, Nagoya, Japan

Artist unknown At the Pass (関屋 Sekiya), Chapter 16 of The Tale of Genji Scroll (源氏物語絵巻 Genji Monogatari Emaki) pigment on paper, circa 1120–1140 Tokugawa Art Museum, Nagoya, Japan