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In the last decade of her life, Helen Frankenthaler rediscovered paper as a privileged medium for exploring various material and compositional possibilities. The transition from paper to engraving was almost natural. Eighteen large-scale works on paper from the artist’s latest production have been selected for the exhibition at the Gagosian Gallery in Rome, many of which have never been shown before. New color combinations and pictorial gestures emerge from the works on display. “I have always painted on paper, but I didn’t think I could elevate it to the format of my canvases... This was a fundamental evolution for me,” the artist observed in 1996. A pioneer in the early 1950s of the revolutionary “soak-stain” technique (a method that uses diluted paint that is absorbed by the canvas like a stain), Helen Frankenthaler was one of the most appreciated American artists of her time. In conjunction with the exhibition in Rome, Helen Frankenthaler: Painting Without Rules, the most important exhibition of Frankenthaler's work ever held in Italy, will open at Palazzo Strozzi in Florence on 27 September 2024.