and now frankenthaler has passed... i've been torn of late trying to piece together my thoughts on her time and her art. i've seen some great pieces and i've seen some real crap and i saw that show at knoedler years ago that was an embarrassment.

helen had a lot of breaks handed her way. you can't deny it or pretend them away... another rich girl out there playing the game-- hook up with the most important critic of the era; marry an established painter, etc... why not?

in the end, i'd say she left more influence then art.

if she gave noland and louis a way out of pollack, she didn't give herself much else...

she blotted and poured and stained away the years and ended up doing poorly wrought landscape-based works that looked like the work of the bankers wife (i think) she was...

it saddens me to think of what she could have done--

how could it go so wrong??

but she did what she did and some of it will stand the test of time.

and as we're told to mourn her,

i'll wonder again to myself

when the pat lipsky retrospective opens...