Abstract Artist Helen Frankenthaler’s Family Is at War

A foundation to promote the legacy of abstract artist Helen Frankenthaler is being torn apart by a family squabble—complete with a lawsuit and a boardroom battle in the midst of planning for a major retrospective. “It’s a poisonous mess,” London art dealer Bernard Jacobson, a longtime friend of Frankenthaler, told The Wall Street Journal. “Helen would be horrified.” Several relatives of Frankenthaler, who died in 2011 at age 83, sit on the board of the foundation—and war has broken out between them. One nephew, Fred Iseman, accused another nephew and Frankenthaler’s stepdaughter of arranging for shows of her paintings at small museums to which they had personal ties and which then got gifts or grants from the foundations. Iseman was then voted off the board—and has sued to get back on and remove everyone else. The Journal notes the legal drama is playing out against the backdrop of planning for a show at the National Gallery, which everyone hopes would boost interest in Frankenthaler and make her hundreds of paintings—the value of which has lagged behind her peers—more valuable.