Among all the artists of the New York School, that brilliant and quarrelsome group of postwar painters and poets, Helen Frankenthaler (1928–2011) stands out for the apparent ease of her artistic process. … Pollock, Rothko, Willem de Kooning must be good, because look what they paid in depression, alcoholism, and self-doubt. Frankenthaler’s stunning canvases challenge this equation and refuse its mean-spirited, capitalistic terms. Too pretty, too privileged, too much plain sailing? Who decides?

https://4columns.org/phillips-julie/fierce-poise