Helen Frankenthaler (American, 1928–2011), Hotel Cro-Magnon, 1958. Oil on canvas, 68 × 81 in. (172.72 × 205.74 cm). Milwaukee Art Museum, Gift of Mrs. Harry Lynde Bradley. M1966.153. © 2026 Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, Inc. / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.
Invariably associated with the landscape, because of their majestic sweep and "natural" forms, Helen Frankenthaler's paintings came to embody the United States' sense of wide open spaces, its almost palpable sense of light, and an almost literal image of freedom. The lack of physical texture, a ubiquitous characteristic of Abstract Expressionism, allows paintings like Hotel Cro-Magnon to seem to embody an almost infinite depth, as light appears to emit out of, as much as fall onto, the surface of the work.
Frankenthaler's method of pouring thinned, flowing paint onto a canvas lying flat on the studio floor allowed the artist to achieve a monumentality and sense of scale that seemed logistically impossible with more traditional easel painting techniques. In Hotel Cro-Magnon viewers are drawn into a world of energy and grand gestures. Calligraphic strokes and energetic splashes suggest the cosmos coming into being, while forms reminiscent of mountains and vales begin to jell. Yet at the same time, grand sweeping gestures are countered by precise touches and concentrated splatters, some applied directly with the artist's fingers and hands. Dense areas of stain are no more important than the areas of the bare canvas. Such equilibrium between empty and full, large and small, order and chaos might remind one of oriental brush painting, bur Frankenthaler's majesty of scale and almost boundless energy are undoubtedly a product of her exposure to and assimilation of American painting in the late 1940s and early 1950s.
Excerpt from Building A Masterpiece: Milwaukee Art Museum. New York: Hudson Hill Press, 2001, P. 154.
