She is best known as an Abstract Expressionist painter whose large-scale shapes and colors contain hints of Hans Hofmann and Jackson Pollock. But just a decade after Helen Frankenthaler’s paintings began to be shown in galleries, she started to experiment with printmaking. A decade after that came woodcuts, now the focus of an exhibition opening on the 10-year anniversary of the artist’s death. Highlights include East and Beyond (1973), which Frankenthaler printed onto multiple blocks to avoid negative space; Cameo (1980), in which she used sandpaper and dentist drills; and her triptych masterpiece Madame Butterfly, which incorporated 46 woodblocks and 102 colors, and measures more than six feet in length. This last one gets its own room in the show. —J.V.

Helen Frankenthaler: Radical Beauty
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Dulwich Picture Gallery / London / Art
Dulwich Picture Gallery / London / Art
Helen Frankenthaler, “Madame Butterfly,” 2000 © 2020 Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, Inc./DACS/Tyler Graphic Ltd., Mount Kisco, NY. Photo: Tim Pyle, courtesy Helen Frankenthaler Foundation.
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