The Lupton Room

We went to Dulwich Picture Gallery. There is an exhibition of work by Helen Frankenthaler as well as the Gallery’s existing stock that is on display for free. There were many visitors but we had no trouble getting tickets for the next slot.

Here are some of the older works on display:

“Elizabeth and Mary Linley” by Thomas Gainsborough (c.1722)

“Jacob’s Dream” by Arent de Gelder (c.1715)

“Virtue and Nobility Putting Ignorance to Flight” by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (c.1743)

“The Judde Memorial”, Unknown Artist (c.1560)

“The Crucifixion Of Saint Peter” by José Antolínez (1660)

“Philip IV, King Of Spain” attrib. Velazquez (1644-60)

And so on in to Helen’s world.

I don’t think the lighting in the first section of the show is good for her work, but if ti were turned up then glare off the perspex covers would make them even harder to see. The coloration is important as the artist clearly took a lot of time over the effects and made multiple versions, as we can see in the second section, where several earlier forms of “Savage Breeze” and “Essence Mulberry” are displayed side by side, with only the final one designated with the title, unqualified by “Working Proof”. Because of the lighting issues, here are some scans of the postcards on sale of her work.

“Freefall” (1993), “Tales Of Genji IV” (1998), “Grove” (1998)

“Weeping Crabapple” (2009), Central panel of “Madame Butterfly” (2000)

“Madame Butterfly” is her most complex work, a triptych in which the 3 panels show a slow evolution, almost a time-lapse as colours fade out whilst other boundaries come into definition.

There is a film of old footage of Frankenthaler at work: