Frankenthaler, woodcuts and Japan

Abstract

Helen Frankenthaler was five days short of her thirteenth birthday when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, on 7 December 1941, causing the United States finally to enter the Second World War. She was 16 in August 1945 when the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, putting an end to the war. Yet, despite the fact that Japan had been the Enemy, many Americans – including many American artists – became fascinated with Japan and its culture in the years following the war. This article details the particular importance of Japan in the creation of the works in the exhibition Helen Frankenthaler: Radical Beauty, at the Dulwich Picture Gallery, London, in 2021–22 – Frankenthaler’s extraordinary woodcuts.