Write your awesome label here.

"Soak-Stain" Landscapes

Explore theory and methods of Helen Frankenthaler in this workshop of gesturing, color theory, and 'soak-stain' abstraction painting.

This workshop is closed until the next major Helen Frankenthaler exhibition in NYC. Email to request a private workshop: hello@eastvillageworkshop.com

Schedule

Date: Saturday May 30th, 2026
Time: 11am-1pm
Location: St Mark's Place, East Village
Price: $50

Date: Saturday June 6th, 2026
Time: 11am-1pm
Location: St Mark's Place, East Village
Price: $50

Date: Saturday June 13th, 2026
Time: 11am-1pm
Location: St Mark's Place, East Village
Price: $50

Date: Saturday June 20th, 2026
Time: 11am-1pm
Location: St Mark's Place, East Village
Price: $50

What will you do?

1. Learn

Helen Frankenthaler’s career, artworks, and soak-stain technique.

Write your awesome label here.

2. Abstract

Form ideas, shapes, and colors through memory abstraction exercises.

3. Draw

Create a composition using automatic gesturing methods.

Write your awesome label here.

4. Paint

Put your abstraction on canvas using Frankenthaler's "soak-stain" technique.

5. Critique

Share, discuss, and interpret artwork.

Write your awesome label here.

6. Experience

View Helen Frankenthaler's exhibition at Gagosian Gallery and experience New York's art scene.

Helen Frankenthaler: The Moment and the Distance (April 30th-July 2nd)

Current Workshops

The Blue Rider

Explore methods of The Blue Rider Group: Wassily Kandinsky, Franz Marc, Paul Klee, and Gabriele Münter.

St Mark's Place Studio, East Village

Hilma af Klint "The Garden"

Explore Hilma af Klint’s botanical "energy" theories through direct observation in botanical gardens.

Botanical Gardens, East Village

Hilma af Klint "The Five"

Explore and exercise automatism and spiritual abstraction methods of Hilma af Klint's "The Five"

Tompkins Square Park, East Village

Write your awesome label here.

Share this.

Follow this.

Who is Helen Frankenthaler?

Helen Frankenthaler

(1928-2011)

landscape abstraction

Abstractions of land elements, scenes, or memories.

"I think of my pictures as explosive landscapes, worlds, and distances held on a flat surface."
- Helen Frankenthaler

automatic gesture

Spontaneous, intuitive marks that capture the painter’s immediate energy.

"Wrist motion that is synchronized with your head and heart, and you have it. It looks as if it were born in a minute.” -Helen Frankenthaler

soak-stain

Applying thinned paint onto unprimed canvas, creating color-fused shapes and forms.

"It creates opticality and openness by eliminating the dualism between figure and ground."
-Clemente Greenberg

translucent layering

Color applied thinly so the surface underneath remains partly visible.

"I don't start with a color order, but find the colors as I go." -Helen Frankenthaler

color field

Using large, flat areas of color to create immersive imagery.

"Frankenthaler bridged Abstract Expressionism and Color Field painting, emphasizing openness, color, and atmosphere."

First known work

Still Life, 1948

Woman, 1950

21st Street Studio,1950

Circus Landscape, 1951

Mountains and Sea, 1952

Helen meets Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner through art critic Clement Greenberg.

"It was all there. I wanted to live in this land. I had to live there and master the language."
-Helen Frankenthaler

Shatter, 1953

Sunspot, 1954

Breakthrough, 1956

Towards a New Climate, 1957

French Horizon, 1958

Helen marries fellow painter Robert Motherwell. Many of her works were created at their summer retreat in Provincetown, MA.

"My work is full of climates. And the feeling of an order that is associated more with nature."
-Helen Frankenthaler

The Red Sea, 1959

Swan Lake, 1961

Beach Scene, 1961

The Bay, 1963

Orange Mood, 1964

Small's Paradise, 1964

Represents the United States at the 33rd Venice Biennale in 1966. (with Lichtenstein, Kelly, and Olitski)

Flood, 1967

Nature Abhors a Vacuum 1967

"De Fem" Drawings

Moontide, 1968

"De Fem" Drawings

Seseme, 1970

"De Fem" Drawings

Ocean Drive West #1, 1974

"De Fem" Drawings

A Green Thought in a Green Shade, 1981

Into October, 1983

Arctic Thaw, 1990

No. 4, Youth

Hot Ice, 1990

No. 6, Adulthood

Sister Sky, 1991

No. 7, Adulthood

Fantasy Garden, 1992

No. 7, Adulthood

Borrowed Dream, 1992

No. 7, Adulthood

The Other Side, 2002

No. 8, Adulthood

Cloud Burst, 2002

No. 9, Old Age

Kiss, 2003

No. 7, Adulthood

Weeping Crabapple, 2009

Last known work

No. 7, Adulthood

Artwork Spotlight

Swan Lake, 1961

Swan Lake is from a breakthrough period when she refined the soak-stain technique that influenced Color Field painting. Clement Greenberg described this shift as moving away from gesture toward “a more open, optical clarity,” where the emphasis is on color relationships rather than brushwork.

"De Fem" Drawings