The Bullfight
The Bullfight
Artist
Helen Frankenthaler
(1928 - 2011)
Date1958
MediumGouache on paper
Dimensions24 3/8 × 19 in. (61.9 × 48.3 cm)
Framed: 33 3/4 × 27 5/8 × 1 3/4 in.
Framed: 33 3/4 × 27 5/8 × 1 3/4 in.
ClassificationsWatercolor
Credit LineCrystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas, Gift of the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, 2015.8
Signedl.c.: "frankenthaler / 8/58"
Accession number
2015.8
On View
Not on viewLabel TextIn 1958, Helen Frankenthaler attended a bullfight while on her honeymoon in Spain. This epic event pitting human against beast horrified, yet inspired her. In Frankenthaler’s depiction created shortly after the event, large swaths of paint mark the surface of the paper. There is an immediacy and violence to this work. While recognizable forms of the bull and matador may not emerge from the chaos, Frankenthaler’s emotions at seeing the experience come across in her expressionistic style. Frankenthaler’s painting recalls her visceral reaction to the bloodshed and overall violencen of the spectacle in a way that marries her application of paint with the subject matter. Since this work employs abstraction in place of representation, it is Frankenthaler’s gestural movement that transports viewers to the tense moment she remembered.
Markingsverso, green label, u.r.: P58-4
