Frankenthaler x Judd

In fall 2026, Kunsthal KAdE in Amersfoort will present an exhibition that brings together the work of Helen Frankenthaler (1928–2011) and Donald Judd (1928–1994). Born the same year and rising to prominence in postwar New York, the two artists pursued markedly different paths within the history of abstraction while achieving major success in the United States. The level of success was radically different in Europe, especially in the Netherlands. Here, Donald Judd's minimalist work was extensively shown and collected from the beginning of the 1970s, while Frankenthaler’s work – and that of her female Abstract Expressionist peers – was almost completely ignored. Until recently, only the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam held a single print of Helen Frankenthaler from a larger portfolio of American artists, acquired after her death. It was only in 2025 that the museum added two Frankenthaler paintings to its holdings. The work of her female compatriots – like Lee Krasner, Joan Mitchell, Grace Hartigan and Elaine De Kooning – is still absent in Dutch museums.

Donald Judd was a darling of the Dutch art world, not least because of art historian and curator Rudi Fuchs, who was an ardent advocate of his oeuvre and bought works for the museums in Eindhoven, The Hague, and Amsterdam. Together, major Dutch museums own over forty works by Donald Judd, including nineteen sculptures. In 1994, Rudi Fuchs acquired a large aluminum sculpture for the Stedelijk Museum of which a version was already present in the Boijmans Van Beuningen collection in Rotterdam, albeit in a different color scheme, ignoring the concept of ‘The Collection of The Netherlands' that was emerging around that time. The exhibition at Kunsthal KAdE will show both sculptures together for the first time in thirty years.

Contrasts

Bringing the two bodies of work together in a single exhibition is a study in contrasts. The two artists both represent crucial developments in postwar art: Frankenthaler’s work emerged from the innovations of Abstract Expressionism in the 1950s, a position she continued to develop across subsequent decades. With expansive gestures, she applied luminous color to large canvases, sometimes by means of her soak-stain technique, whereby the paint was absorbed into the canvas and fanned out across its surface. Judd became one of the leading figures of 1960s Minimalism, producing rigorously ordered geometric forms that were often fabricated from industrial materials and assembled by others.

The exhibition underscores these distinctions as they emerge within each artist’s body of work: free form versus rigidity, intuition versus reason, personal gesture versus “industrial” attitude, but also undervalued (and therefore under-collected) versus popular and amassed (partly reflecting the male orientation in Dutch postwar art collecting). At the same time, there are subtle similarities. Frankenthaler regularly used rectangular and square surfaces in her work, at times flirting with Minimalism. Toward the end of his career, Judd began to use increasingly expressive color, a factor that is an important part of Frankenthaler's visual power.

Although they were the same age, Judd and Frankenthaler are believed to have moved in different artistic circles. Judd was associated with a younger generation of artists that emerged in the early 1960s, while Frankenthaler was already established through her early ties to the Abstract Expressionists and critics such as Clement Greenberg. Around 1960, the New York art scene was in flux. At that time, Frankenthaler already had several exhibitions, while Judd was still searching for his definitive artistic voice. In the early 1960s, he wrote hundreds of reviews for Arts Magazine, partly as a way to see a great amount of art, and also to sharpen his own artistic profile. Between 1960 and 1963, Judd would write three of those reviews about Frankenthaler exhibitions (which grew gradually more critical). flux. Op dat moment had Frankenthaler al verschillende tentoonstellingen achter de rug, terwijl Judd nog op zoek was naar zijn definitieve artistieke stem. In het begin van de jaren zestig schreef hij honderden recensies voor Arts Magazine, deels om een grote hoeveelheid kunst te kunnen bekijken, maar ook om zijn eigen artistieke profiel aan te scherpen. Tussen 1960 en 1963 schreef Judd drie van die recensies over tentoonstellingen van Frankenthaler (die geleidelijk aan kritischer werden).

Looking back on the twentieth century, Minimalism (and the Conceptualism that flowed from it) and Abstract Expressionism were the bookends of postwar Western art history, making this exhibition a cogent reflection on this history.

Vivian Suter

The project is completed with a presentation by Vivian Suter (Buenos Aires, 1949) in the ElleboogkerkSuter’s work provides a contemporary counterpoint to Frankenthaler’s painting. She has the same freedom and the same intuitive approach towards the canvas. Originally from Argentina, Suter lives in the jungle of Guatemala and paints her canvases outdoors in nature. As with Frankenthaler, the orientation of a work is never immediately fixed. Frankenthaler painted her canvases on the floor and later determined the top and bottom. Suter does the same in her nature studio. Suter's installations consist of dozens of these canvases, unstretched, hanging freely in the space or on the wall. Labyrinthine installations that echo the jungle where she works.

Frankenthaler x Judd, September 26, 2026, through January 4, 2027, Kunsthal KAdE, Amersfoort, Tue-Sun 10 a.m.-5 p.m., www.kunsthalkade.nl
Vivian Suter, September 26, 2026, through January 4, 2027, Elleboogkerk, Amersfoort, Tue-Sun 10 a.m.-5 p.m., www.elleboogkerk.nl