HELEN FRANKENTHALER (1928-2011)

Emily Mason was raised in New York City amidst the avant-garde artist circle of her mother Alice Trumbull Mason’s friends and peers. When Emily was growing up, she would accompany her mother to events at, for example, the Eighth Street Club, where fellow attendees included Jackson Pollock, Lee Krasner, Franz Kline, Robert Motherwell and Helen Frankenthaler. Reflecting on her early interactions with other female artists like Frankenthaler, Joan Mitchell and Elaine de Kooning, Mason recalled, “I liked the freedom the women had in those days…the freedom to find their own style, their own voice. I was so schooled, you see.”