Frankenthaler, Helen, 1928-, American painter, b. New York City. A painter of the abstract expressionist school (see abstract expressionism), Frankenthaler was greatly influenced by Jackson Pollock, with whom she studied. In the early 1950s she developed a technique for staining unprimed canvases with color that was later to influence the color-field painters (see color-field painting). Her abstract works evoke a lyrical and sensuous mood, as in Blue Territory (1955) and Arden (1961; both: Whitney Mus., New York City).