Special presentation of Helen Frankenthaler paintings in MoMA atrium
The Museum of Modern Art presents “Helen Frankenthaler: A Grand Sweep,” a concentrated installation of the artist’s work in the Museum’s Donald and Catherine Marron Family Atrium. On view from November 18, 2025, through February 8, 2026, this installation draws from MoMA’s extraordinary holdings of Frankenthaler’s paintings.
Spanning over three decades, this presentation marks the artist’s first monographic moment at the Museum since her 1989 retrospective. “Helen Frankenthaler: A Grand Sweep” is organized by Samantha Friedman, Curator, Department of Drawings and Prints, with Elizabeth Wickham, Curatorial Assistant, Department of Painting and Sculpture.
“The scale of the Marron Family Atrium allows us to foreground the ambition that defined Frankenthaler’s work,” Friedman said. “This focused group of key works from MoMA’s collection traces the arc of her painting practice, highlighting key moments within her continual innovation.”
Ranging from the 1950s through the 1980s, the installation offers a succinct exploration of Frankenthaler’s pioneering contributions to postwar American painting. Anchoring the installation is Toward Dark (1988), a recent acquisition generously gifted by the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation that exemplifies the artist’s expressive gesture and compositional boldness.
Paintings from previous decades set the stage for this late nocturne; among the other works on view is Jacob’s Ladder (1957), which Frankenthaler described as developing “into shapes symbolic of an exuberant figure and ladder,” leading her to name it after a favorite work in El Museo Nacional del Prado, José de Ribera’s Jacob’s Dream (1639).
The installation also includes Chairman of the Board (1971), a work that signals the artist’s confident monumentality and compositional ambition; for her, this painting “was about a grand sweep…I had the basic idea in my head—I knew how the lines would dance in. I felt sure of myself.”
This presentation invites visitors to experience the depth, evolution, and enduring power of Frankenthaler’s art. With this exhibition, MoMA embraces the scale and ambition of her vision, offering an immersive encounter with her practice in one of the Museum’s most dramatic spaces.
