"Pompeii Forte," 1976-82 Drypoint, Etching, Sugar-lift Etching, Soft-ground Etching, and Aquatint by Helen Frankenthaler

Pompeii Forte, 1976-82; Drypoint, etching, sugar-lift etching, soft-ground etching, and aquatint in colors, on white CM Fabriano Classico paper; Signed Frankenthaler and dated '76-82' in pencil lower right and numbered 3/5 in pencil lower left; Published by Donn H. Steward, Halesite, NY (with their blindstamp); Catalogue Raisonne: Harrison 88; Size - Image: 12 1/4 x 22 1/2", Sheet 22 x 30 1/2"; Unframed.

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Helen Frankenthaler (1928-2011) was an American abstract expressionist painter who exhibited artwork for over six decades starting from the early 1950's until her passing in 2011. She was included in the 1964 Post-Painterly Abstraction exhibition curated by the famed art critic Clement Greenberg; and the body of work presented in the show would latter be known as Color Field Painting. Frankenthaler's work has been the subject of several retrospective exhibitions, including the important 1989 retrospective held at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. In 2011 she was awarded the National Medal of Arts.

The entire sheet of "Pompeii Forte"

Helen Frankenthaler is, without a question, one of the greatest artists of the twentieth century and is one of the very few female artists that would be included in such a list. She was married to the abstract expressionist artist Robert Motherwell, and had an intimate relationship with the famous art critic Clement Greenberg; so her connections within the art community run very deep. Frankenthaler was initially involved in the abstract expressionist movement but was looking for a path forward. Then, after a trip in October to Nova Scotia, had a breakthrough with a painting entitled "Mountains and Sea," 1952. The painting was abstract, and rather than painting the landscape seen on her trip, the work portrayed the experience itself. The composition was painted using a "soak stain" technique, whereby unprimed canvas duct is painted using oil paint that had been heavily thinned with turpentine. The effects of the technique reinforced the abstract nature of the landscape painting; and when the artists Kenneth Noland and Morris Louis saw it in her studio, their own painting styles and working methods were forever changed.

Close up of the Frankenthaler signature and the date.

During the 1960's, ULAE published original prints by Sam Francis, Helen Frankenthaler, Jasper Johns, Barnett Newman, Robert Rauschenberg, Larry Rivers, Cy Twombly, and many other major modern artists working at the time. In 1966 ULAE established an etching studio and on the printers hired was Donn Steward. Steward had studied etching at the University of Iowa and had trained as a lithography printer at Tamarind. He worked with Frankenthaler and printed the four aquatints made at ULAE.

The next two paragraphs are from "Frankenthaler: A Catalogue Raisonne, Prints 1961-1994" by Pegram Harrison:

"It was rare for Frankenthaler to work with an independent printer-publisher. However, because she and intaglio printer Donn Steward had collaborated together so successfully at ULAE, she continued the relationship after he left the studio in 1975 to establish his own workshop in Halesite, New York, on Long Island's North Shore. Before his death in 1985, they completed two projects, "Pompeii" and "Comet."

"Pompeii Forte" is a horizontal version of the 1976 "Pompeii." As the title implies, the orange (called "pompeii tint" on Steward's documentation sheet) as well as the red color are printed darker and thus with more strength than in the original version. When Frankenthaler reviewed the impressions in 1982, she allowed them to be released under the new title." 

Close up of the edition number.

This is an extremely rare work by Helen Frankenthaler in an edition of only five. The use of the word "Pompeii" in the title recalls the ancient Roman Italian city that was destroyed and buried under about 20 feet of volcanic ash and pumice, during the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79. The addition of the word "Forte" to the title demonstrates that there is an excellence in this work; a striking difference between an earlier vertical print entitled "Pompeii" created in 1976. For the horizontal version of "Pompeii Forte" the orange and the reds were printed darker and the work reads as a powerful and striking landscape.

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