Tint and Frankenthaler: Liquid Light and Dark in Chelsea

At A Hug From The Art World, Francine Tint exhibits recent paintings in Open Color. 

The gallery, at 515 W 19th St., is a charming two-story brownstone with an open door beckoning visitors into the space, with an upstairs component with works on paper.

The green work on left is one of a dozen or so color explorations made from vividly hued, singular pours. The space they inhabit is welcoming: you can peruse the exhibition catalog and view the work in quiet.

Downstairs, two horizontal walls flank each other, framing these large works within. The ceilings are low, the room almost a passageway, albeit a beautiful one. Consequently the paintings are hung unusually low, inviting more intimate encounters with the liquid brushstrokes.

A penchant for pouring, reminiscent of the "Tenth Street Touch" and Hole's legendary line in the 1994 song Rock Star,  has struck New York. The advantage in this is that diverse paint applications, once siloed, now coalesce into complex, contemporary viewpoints. 

Tint, a committed abstract painter for the duration of her long career, recognized as a stylist in the fashion and rock worlds, fully realizes abandon and wildness in the work.

Her paintings are filled with rhythm, poured from containers, dry brushed, and swipe in a final bravado gesture. Clots of paint dot bare canvas interstices. The landscape implied by orientation and pattern recognition remains cipher-like, conjuring multiple interpretations.

Don't miss it! On through June.

Helen Frankenthaler's Alassio, 1960, oil on linen, 85.25x131 inches, in the tour de force The Moment and The Distance at Gagosian on 21st St. This survey coalesces early and late work, showing for the first time the painter's shift toward dense paint application.

Gamut, 1968, 134 x 93 inches, after Frankenthaler's switch to acrylic. The space in this painting is akin to the desert that inspired it: vivid, perfect, spare, yet full.

Auguste, 1977, 96 x 108 inches - where things get interesting as Frankenthaler accumulates layers and density. These late paintings, some of which I saw in the 2021 Palm Springs Museum show, are a real surprise, revealing shifts and expansions normally suppressed in the Color Field narrative. Let us not forget that Pollock presented her point of departure. The texture forces us to locate ourselves anew. 

Hint from Bassano, 1973, 85 x 277 inches

Classic Color Field, first seen in Bonnie Clearwater's 2024 Glory of the World survey at NSU Museum, Fort Lauderdale.

A Green Thought in a Green Shade, 1981, 119 x 156.5 inches, my personal favorite. It featured in Frankenthaler's 2008 New York solo exhibition at Knoedler & Co., Frankenthaler at Eighty, which I visited on a snowy day and first recognized the moment/distance described by this exhibition's title.

Details from close to

Beautiful silvers and umbers

Code Blue, 1980, Acrylic on canvas, 79.25 x 170.25 inches (with a yellow filter)

Similar to A Green Thought in a Green Shade, Code Blue has innumerable painterly incidents within its pours and hints toward the denser textures to come already present in Auguste.

Eastern Light, 1982, acrylic on canvas, 69 x 118.5 inches. The shifting and variation in Frankenthaler's process revealing more complexity than a coherent, linear narrative. We see an imprimatur nonetheless.

Cathedral, 1982, acrylic on canvas, 70-5/8 x 120 inches; the most similar to Francine Tint.

Shippan October, 1981, Acrylic on canvas, 47.25 x 136 inches. The references almost pictorial here.

Borrowed Dream, 1992, Acrylic on canvas, 84.5 x 108.5 inches. In the 1990s Frankenthaler gets wild, layering and then combing through to the transparency, searchingly.