A prolific painter and printmaker, Helen Frankenthaler is known for pioneering the "soak-stain" technique in painting. Drawing inspiration from the free-flowing paint of Jackson Pollock's black-and-white canvases of 1951, Frankenthaler began applying thinned color pigment directly onto unprimed canvases. Her resulting abstract paintings had a liquid appearance devoid of any tangible pigment, much like a watercolor, but more luminous and on a larger scale. In 1953, art critic Clement Greenberg introduced painters Morris Louis and Kenneth Noland to Frankenthaler's canvases. The two Washington, D.C.–based painters were so exhilarated by what they saw in her New York studio that they returned to Washington and immediately began to experiment with the soak-stain technique.

Alexander Liberman (1912–1999)
Color transparency, 1975 (printed 2002)
Published September 1975 (cover)
ARTnews Collection, New York City