Helen Frankenthaler has been one of my favorite artists for years and I honestly struggle to answer why when I’m asked. I’m sorry, Helen! I really do love your work. Although the Manhattan-born artist died back in 2011, her legacy lives on. Her artistic influence is undeniable. Her colors, her forms, her application of paint permeate even today’s art.

Anytime I see her larger than life canvases, I’m magnetically drawn to them. Just yesterday, another art history major friend and I were discussing masculinity and femininity in art. Of course this is a binary and can be subjective, but I find Frankenthaler’s art to be deeply feminine, not just because she was a woman.

In Flirt, for instance, the warm, pastel tones and floral-esque forms recall Springtime’s blooms–which is often associated with femininity. The rose like a vulva, the floral aromas like pheromones and perfume, the curves of soft petals like the hourglass of a woman’s hips. Even the paintings name carries this romantic idea. Do you also imagine the soft batting of eyelashes, downcast eyes, and slight smile when you think of flirting?

Frankenthaler used oil paint in such a unique way so that it seeped into the canvas. There’s something delicate yet sturdy about it given the canvas’ structure. The canvas itself becomes inseparable from the painting.

Frankenthaler was a member of the Ninth Street Women, which also included Lee Krasner, Elaine de Kooning, Grace Hartigan, and Joan Mitchell. These four gave birth to what we know as Abstract Expressionism; although they’re often overlooked in favor of their male contemporaries. Pollock, Rothko, Willem de Kooning, Franz Kline, and others. Classic… However, these women were included in the prominent 9th Street exhibition, proving that their prowess rivaled that of men.

Frankenthaler’s remarkable talent secured her place as a member of the New York School, a group of avant-garde artists at the cutting edge of this new form of expression.

The thing I love about abstract art, and Frankenthaler’s in particular, is that it is completely up to interpretation. There are no discernible figures to anchor down context. Unless you’re familiar with the artist’s life, motivations, or other factors at the time of creation, you’re looking at nothing but gestural shapes, brushstrokes, and colors. Your interpretation is just as valid as the person’s next to you. Better yet, your interpretation is just as valid as a highbrow art critic’s who uses their degree and experience looking at other pieces to convince you of their comprehensive knowledge.

We bring our own meanings to an abstract painting. We see what we know. What we’ve been through. What we like and dislike.

Frankenthaler painted Flirt towards the end of her life. I find it to be a beautiful culmination of a career spanning nearly six decades. She was never afraid to get messy. Even though some of her works may appear chaotic at first glance, there’s something very put together about them. She wasn’t flicking paint like Pollock. Or creating huge blotches like Motherwell (whom she was married to for quite some time). Anyone can see the care she pours into her work, literally pours.

Flirt evokes this sense of calm. The sky blue around the edges juxtaposed with the soft pink makes me think of the evolution of the sky as it nears night. This painting is the product of someone nearing the sunset of her life. It is a final ode to the thing she loves. A thing she helped to change the course of. A thing that makes people stop and stare. Even if they find it to be nothing but random brushstrokes, they still look.

Philip Guston (formerly Philip Goldstein) is no stranger to persecution and tragedy. Born in Montreal in 1913, Guston was the son of Jewish parents who escaped antisemitic hostility in Ukraine. The family relocated to Los Angeles, seeing firsthand the horrific discrimination and violence against African Americans (epitomized by the release of the KKK-glorifying film The Birth of a Nation). At the ripe age of ten, Guston came across the hanged body of his father, who had killed himself in their family’s shed. Perhaps succumbing to the hopelessness triggered by the ugliness of the world. Humans lacking humanity.

At an age when many would be embracing their adolescent freedom, Guston was fighting for that of others. When he was 18, he collaborated with another artist to create an indoor mural. The mural tackled systemic oppression and aimed to promote fundraising to defend the Scottsboro Boys–a group of nine African American boys falsely accused of raping two women in Alabama. The mural was defaced by local police who were banded together against communism; their group had a national presence in major cities and was labeled the Red Squad. The LAPD was found innocent although the mural experienced irreversible damage.

With his heightened sociopolitical consciousness, Guston used art as an avenue to represent suffering, hatred, and modern plights. He turned away from the Abstract Expressionism that was popular at the time and instead chose Neo-Expressionism. Despite the dark subject matter, his works appear almost cartoonish and comical in his plump, vibrant figures. There is a layer of playfulness and palatability. Almost as if the insidious lurks beneath the surface where you can only notice it if you look hard enough.

Pittore is Italian for ‘painter’. I think we can all relate to those bloodshot eyes of exhaustion. The clock points to 11. Is it 11pm when the figure is battling insomnia? Or is it 11am when he is finding it difficult to muster the will to rise up out of bed?

I believe this quote from Guston echoes the sentiment that I imagine a lot of politically-minded artists face as they grapple between art-making and taking part in civic engagement on the streets:

“What kind of man am I, sitting at home, reading magazines, going into a frustrated fury about everything—and then going into my studio to adjust a red to a blue?”

Philip Guston

In Pittore, we may identify the figure as Guston himself. His paintbrush and paints are laid out next to him. A reminder of his life’s path. The pillow underneath his head resembles teeth; I imagine him being chewed up, spit out, and forced to exist as this regurgitated shell of himself. Cigarettes are visible in a lot of Guston’s art including Pittore. I think they signify a coping mechanism. In the early 70’s when this painting was made, cigarettes weren’t as vilified as they are today. However, some sources mark this precise year as the rise of an antismoking ethos. I’m sure many viewed it as a necessary evil, in addition to alcohol and other substances. A temporary distraction that provides fleeting pleasure, instant gratification, and numbness.

Two words come to mind when I look at Guston’s paintings: collective trauma. Guston really captures the defeat many of us feel at some point–whether it’s due to something personal, societal, or a mash-up of both. His artwork is full of symbols encapsulated by every day objects. Eyes become both windows to the soul but also windows to a bleak reality. There’s something very grim about these colorful images. It makes sense given the cruelty Guston witnessed.

I’ve seen Guston’s art exhibited across North America from Montreal to Seattle to San Francisco to New York City. His canvases are huge. They’re loud and they jump out at you, demanding that you look both inward and outward. It’s impossible not to be consumed by the uneasiness he portrays. It corrodes our insides and burns into our psyches. We cannot help but harbor cynicism as we navigate the world and everything it throws at us.

Alice Neel (1900-1984) was once dubbed a “collector of souls” and I think that’s an astute title for the portrait artist. Her paintings–which have been described as embodying an Expressionist Realism–capture, above all, the vulnerability of their subjects.

This portrait of Andy Warhol was created only 2 years after he was shot by radical feminist, playwright, actress, and author of the SCUM Manifesto: Valerie Solanas. Warhol was declared clinically dead for two minutes after one of Solanas’ three shots punctured his lung. Warhol would die from complications related to the gunshot wound decades later.

I could go on to write about the motivations behind and implications of Solana’s intent to murder Warhol, but that’s not my intention. I’m writing to explore Neel’s depiction of Warhol and how it speaks to the larger meaning and purpose behind her works.

In “collecting the souls” of her sitters, Neel positions them at their most unguarded. Many of her other portraits portray nakedness. (I’d like to note the distinction between being naked and being nude as laid out by art critic John Berger. Neel doesn’t necessarily place her sitters on display in an exploitative or voyeuristic manner–which would constitute nudity in this case. Rather, their nakedness provokes the viewer to foster a greater empathy for the sitter’s humanity. They’re not to be looked at as an object, but to be engaged with as someone with complex interiority. There is no disguise.)

Andy Warhol is a somewhat enigmatic figure in history. His eccentric personality made him magnetic. There was and has always been intrigue surrounding the artist. Years ago, I read The Philosophy of Andy Warhol: From A to B and Back Again, which gives you insight into the mind of the artist. This autobiography teeters between stream of consciousness and a meticulously crafted meditation on life. It covers money, love, consumerism, and more.

Naturally, because of his enigmatic image, he was and is still, I think, elevated to a sort of abstract level–as are many famed figures throughout history. Neel’s painting brings Warhol down from the intangible to the human. After all, he is one of us, even if his enduring reputation makes him seem not so. Warhol’s facial expression comes off calm yet tired. The blue contour and hues lend themself to this sense of stillness. This blue contour is present in a lot of other Neel portraits. I believe this blue outline contains the scene and sitter. Time seems to slow and stop altogether.

Knowing the context of the Warhol portrait deepens the visual melancholy. His stitched and sagging chest looks pitiful. It is deeply vulnerable and feels as though his wounds will split open and expose his insides. In this painting, he ceases to be Warhol the iconic painter and returns to his true identity as Andy the man.

I especially love how the painting appears unfinished. Neel deliberately chose not to fill in the couch Andy sits on, instead representing it with thin, imperfect lines. She even leaves his left knee as a sketch. Could it be a reference to the weakness inflicted by the attack? A sort of loss? Unraveling? Is it an erasure of the facade that abstracts Andy the man and results in our perception of Warhol the iconic painter?

Neel lived a very difficult life, which included the death of one child and suicide of another, poverty, and an estranged husband. Any of these circumstances would leave a person traumatized for life. Despite these misfortunes–or maybe better put–because of these misfortunes, Neel perceived people on a deeper level. Her portraits peel back the society-facing surface that people often hide behind so to cloak their anxieties and insecurities.

What would we look like if we embraced these inhibitions instead of burying them? I imagine we would look a lot like Andy in Neel’s portrait. Beautiful in our vulnerability and deserving of empathy. Resigned to the hardships of life. Resilient not in a heroic way, but in a human way. Going on not because we want to, but because we have to. Life keeps moving, even if Neel’s portraits hush that movement.

Check out more of Neel’s works here.