Helen Frankenthaler (b. 1928)

"Essentially, I think color comes out of drawing. Even if it appears as if color is the primary consideration in a painting, the placement of a specific color is of equal importance. Color is used as you need it within a painting as the image emerges. That process determines whether it's the right color or the wrong color. One of my various methods is to mix many pails of colors that I might want to use before I start working on the canvas. In this way, through the joy of color alone, I can begin a painting by simply putting my colors down and drawing with colors as I go... (H. Frankenthaler quoted in an interview with J. Brown, After Mountains and Sea: Frankenthaler 1956-1959, exh. cat., Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, January-May 1998, pp. 39-40).