Sheldon Museum of Art Main Content

Elizabeth Smith, Executive Director of the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, gives insight to the career and enduring legacy of artist Helen Frankenthaler, whose monumental painting Red Frame is featured in the exhibition Sheldon in Focus: The New York School.

Prior to leading the New York–based Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, Smith was Executive Director, Curatorial Affairs, at the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto; Chief Curator and Deputy Director of Programs at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; and Curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.

Besides Helen Frankenthaler, Smith’s writings and exhibition projects have ranged from the work of artists Uta Barth, Lee Bontecou, and Jenny Holzer to mid-twentieth-century architectural topics including the Los Angeles Case Study Houses. Her most recent writing appears in Action/Gesture/Paint: Women Artists and Global Abstraction 1940–70 (Whitechapel Gallery, 2023).