Known as an important Abstract Expressionist painter,Helen Frankenthaler was also an innovative printmaker. Madame Butterfly, 2000, a gift made possible by Emily Booten Weitz, is considered the pinnacle of her collaborations with master printmaker Kenneth Tyler, printer Yasuyuki Shoibata, and papermaker Tom Strianese. While the work's imagery appers gestural, free flowing, and improvisational, this triptych is the result of two years of work, taking 46 woodblocks inked with 102 different colors to complete. The title refers to the opera by the same name, telling the tragic story of a Japanese woman, but this work was actually inspired by by an antique screen the artist bought in Kyoto (this also informed the work's triptych shape). Frankenthaler usually titled her works after their creation, but one can discern the nod to Japanese art history present here, watercolor in particular, as well as a sense of scale and visual drama similar to that of classical opera. The artist's expressive use of color is on full display, suggesting natural forms and alternating between bright hues and soft washes. Frankenthaler's art is in major collections around the world, with editions of this print also held by the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis and the National  Gallery of Australia. The Art Center's collections currently include five works by Frankenthaler -- two large canvases, a painting on paper, a lithograph, and a woodcut from 1973. The woodcut, known as East and Beyond, represnts the artist's early experimentations with the media, making the acquisition of Madame Butterfly notable as it represnts the culmination of her woodcut practice.

Source: Des Moines Art Center News, Sep Oct Nov Dec 2023