Helen Frankenthaler: Drawing within Nature documents an exhibition of Frankenthaler s sumptuous paintings from the early to mid-1990s, many shown in New York for the first time. This catalog documents an exhibition that focuses on Helen Frankenthaler s paintings on canvas of the early 1990s, along with three large-scale paintings on paper from 1995. In this period, Frankenthaler experimented with new mediums and techniques, resulting in thickly impastoed surfaces that recalibrate our understanding of her practice. A new essay by Thomas Crow examines these paintings in the context of the varied environments in which Frankenthaler lived and worked, from the warm-toned terrain of Santa Fe, New Mexico, to her seaside home and studio in Stamford, Connecticut. Helen Frankenthaler (1928 2011) has long been recognized as one of the great American artists of the twentieth century. A member of the second generation of postwar American abstract painters, she is widely credited with expanding the possibilities of abstraction through her invention of the soak-stain technique, while at times referencing figuration and landscape in highly personal ways.

A pioneering exploration of Rothko's deep and sustained engagement with the history of art While Mark Rothko (1903-1970) has long been considered a preeminent figure in 20th-century art, few publications have examined his work within the broader context of Western art, even though Rothko himself continuously sought it out as inspiration. Rothko had a profound interest in history and art history-including Greek and Roman mythology, Egyptian fables, Byzantine and early Italian gold-ground paintings, and masterworks of the Renaissance and Dutch Golden Age. He first traveled to Europe in 1950, starting in Paris and winding through Venice, Arezzo, Siena, Florence, and Rome; along the way, he admired frescoes by Fra Angelico and architecture by Michelangelo. This beautiful book examines the influence of the artist's travels on his oeuvre. It presents Rothko's engagement with important classical and Old Master works, highlighting older techniques and ideas that the artist may have sought to emulate. Works representative of Rothko's entire corpus are beautifully illustrated with full-page color plates. The book also contains writings by the artist-selected for publication by his son-that document his appreciation of art history in his own words.