Helen Frankenthaler (December 12, 1928 - December 27, 2011), an American abstract expressionist painter. was born and raised in New York City.   Her Father was NY State Supreme Court Justice Alfred Frankehaler. She attended the Dalton School where Rufino Tamayo was an instructor.  A graduate from Bennington College, she studied under Hans Hoffmann and Frank Feeley and she was influenced by Jackson Pollock's paintings.  She exhibited her large scale paintings in contemporary art museums and galleries since the early 1950's.   Exhibiting through the 1960's and being included in the 1964 Post-Painterly Abstraction exhibition curated by Clement Greenberg which gave rise to the new generation of abstract painting known as Color Field.  Her work was given a retrospective exhibition in 1989 at the MOMA (Museum of Modern Art) in New York City.  In 2001 she was awarded the National Medal of Arts.