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This nearly abstract painting is created with flowing bands and triangular forms of mostly single colors in caramel brown, pine and spring green, apricot orange, plum purple, or fuchsia, with some bands of unpainted canvas in this horizontal painting. A wide, tan-colored band rises from the lower left corner toward the upper right. There are triangular forms in pumpkin orange to our left and another near the lower right. With the brown band, they recall hills along a valley. Pink, orange, deep purple, and fuchsia are painted in bands in the lower right corner and across the bottom. Above the tan band, a wide swath of spring and dark green may suggest hills beyond, with swirling yellow, black, pink, and blue under a patch of lavender purple that spans the top edge of the canvas, which could be the sky. The painting is signed and dated at the lower right corner, “Frankenthaler ’73.”

Helen Frankenthaler, Nature Abhors a Vacuum, 1973, acrylic on canvas, Patrons' Permanent Fund and Gift of Audrey and David Mirvish, Toronto, Canada, 2004.129.1

Finding Awe: Helen Frankenthaler’s Abstraction

Interactive Workshop

  • Saturday, March 22, 2025
  • 10:30 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.
  • East Building Upper Level Gallery 407
  • Talks
  • Workshops
  • In-person
  • Registration Required

Experience Frankenthaler’s evocation of nature through her “staining” technique and learn about the artist’s interest in beauty and the sublime.

About “Finding Awe workshops at the National Gallery of Art

We all could use a little more awe in our lives—come find it in the museum! In this series of interactive workshops, explore where artist have found awe and how it has inspired their work and meditate on awe in your own life. 

Join us for a 90-minute pause from your daily routine, to breathe deeply and look mindfully at a single work of art. You’ll be invited to look closely, wonder, and share your insights. We hope you’ll leave with some “awe practices,” tools for cultivating an awe mindset in your daily life. 

This program is grounded in the National Gallery’s longstanding commitment to slow looking and offers new “awe practices” drawn from the research of Dacher Keltner, Professor of Psychology at the University of California-Berkeley, director of The Greater Good Science Center, and author of  “Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life” (2023). Research shows that experiences of awe help support mental and physical wellbeing, open us up to greater creativity and deeper empathy, and connect us to our shared humanity.

Registration required. Each topic is offered three times; register for one. Attend as many different topics as you like. View the full series

Ages 18 and up. Questions? Email [email protected].