Floe IV

While still in her early 20s, Frankenthaler invented a new painting technique that she called “soak stain.” In this process, she brushed or poured oil paint that had been diluted with turpentine onto an unprimed canvas, allowing the colors to soak into the canvas rather than sit on top. The result was a muted, seemingly translucent effect that resembled watercolor. Her technique was soon adopted by other artists and helped to launch a new school of abstract painting called Color Field.

In the 1960s, Frankenthaler started using acrylic paints that allowed for more opacity and sharpness in her compositions, as seen here in Floe IV. The white areas of the composition reveal the canvas itself.