Blue Jay

“A line, color, shapes, spaces, all do one thing for and within themselves, and yet do something else, in relation to everything that is going on within the four sides [of the canvas]. A line is a line, but [also] is a color…. It does this here, but that there. The canvas surface is flat and yet the space extends for miles. What a lie, what trickery—how beautiful is the very idea of painting.” –Helen Frankenthaler

Abstract Expressionist painter Helen Frankenthaler was a significant figure in the postwar American art scene, rising to prominence in the 1950s. By the 1960s, Frankenthaler increasingly utilized a technique she referred to as “soak stain,” resulting in a watercolor-like appearance as seen in Blue Jay. This is achieved by painting directly onto an unprimed canvas with turpentine-diluted oil paints, which influenced artists such as Kenneth Noland and Morris Louis and led the way for Color Field painting (which, as its name suggests, is a movement within Abstract Expressionism characterized by large areas of color).