Long-time Darien, Conn., resident Helen Frankenthaler spent her
life as a painter of contradictions. The daughter of New York
State Supreme Court Justice Alfred Frankenthaler and his wife
Martha Lowenstein, she was born on December 12, 1928 in New York
City. Her parents encouraged her talent from a young age and she
was educated in progressive, experimental schools. However,
Frankenthaler did not immerse herself in the growing avant-garde
culture until early adulthood. After losing her father to cancer
at age eleven, she entered a difficult period which ended when
she was fifteen. It was then that she enrolled in the Dalton
School where she studied under the great Mexican muralist Rufino
Tamayo. She completed her undergraduate work at Bennington
College in Vermont where she studied with Paul Freeley. After
graduating with her B.A. in 1949, she returned to New York City
set on expanding her influence in the art world. A year later
she organized an exhibition for Bennington alumnae artists in
New York. It was a