Making Music: Helen Frankenthaler Prints from the New York University Art Collection

Organized by the Grey Art Museum, New York University

Great music, beautifully performed is transcendent. At that moment, on that frequency, it demonstrates the same magic, the same je ne sais quoi that applies to any art; magic that really can’t be described, only experienced. 

—Helen Frankenthaler

Like many artists of her generation, Helen Frankenthaler (1928–2011) recognized a profound affinity between visual abstraction and musical expression. In music, which she described as “the most abstract of all arts,” Frankenthaler saw a kindred desire: to transcend the literal and give form to feeling. 

Frankenthaler repeatedly turned to music as a source of inspiration, creative fellowship, and allusive titles for her works. From the jazz clubs of 1950s New York to the ballets and operas she frequented throughout her working life, the artist engaged with the performing arts as a devoted participant. She cultivated long-term relationships with musicians, brought her visual art to the stage by designing costumes and sets, and produced commissioned prints for arts institutions and festivals.

This openness to collaboration shaped Frankenthaler’s four-decade-long printmaking practice. The artist worked with master printers in studios around the world, embracing the process as an opportunity for shared artistic endeavor. Print workshops offered unique environments of creative immersion and invention, where music played, people shared ideas, and the collective rhythm of making became inseparable from the work itself. 

Rooted in these connections, Making Music is the first exhibition to highlight the lifelong dialogue between sight and sound in Frankenthaler’s art. Echoing the artist’s own practice of borrowing titles—in this case that of a late print on loan from the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation—the show features works selected primarily from a 2023 gift from the Foundation’s Prints Initiative. Together, the works invite a broader consideration of the role of music and the performing arts in Frankenthaler’s life and legacy.

Curators

The exhibition is curated by Saskia K. Verlaan, Head of Collections, and Tyler C. Spencer, Graduate Curatorial Assistant (2024–26), Grey Art Museum, NYU.