Helen Frankenthaler studied at the Art Students League in New York, The Dalton School, and completed her BA in 1949 at Bennington College in Vermont. In addition to teaching at New York, Harvard, Princeton, and Yale Universities, Frankenthaler had numerous one-person exhibitions, including retrospectives at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1969 and the Museum of Modern Art, New York in 1989.

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As part of the New York avante-garde in the 1950s, Frankenthaler sought to transform elements of nature into abstract shapes and colors. Moving away from abstract expressionism, she defined her own unique style with her stain paintings – pouring thinned pigment in layers onto unprimed canvas. She also also experimented with other materials, creating steel sculptures, ceramic works, woodcuts, color prints, and illustrated books.

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Frankenthaler's work can be found in collections across the word, such as Tate Gallery, London, UK; Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY; National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA; Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL; High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY; Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA.