One Bennington College Alumna Honors Another: World-renowned Painter Recognizes Longtime Friend With Pledge to Their Alma Mater

February 14, 2006

The distinguished American artist and a graduate of Bennington College, Helen Frankenthaler ’49 has pledged $100,000 to Bennington College in honor of her close friend, Rebecca Stickney, graduate of the class of 1943. This gift will establish the Rebecca B. Stickney ’43 Fund, which Ms. Frankenthaler hopes will grow with contributions from other generous donors.

Ms. Stickney, who earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in natural science, plans on asking Bennington to allocate at least a portion of the funds to the science program at the College. According to Ms. Stickney, “Bennington is the place where I found my passion for science.” A galvanizing force among Bennington alumni for almost seven decades, Ms. Stickney currently serves as special assistant to the president and on the Board of Trustees.

After graduating from Bennington College, Helen Frankenthaler entered the New York art scene and developed a painting technique that created a unique visual space, atmosphere, and mood in all of her paintings. A pioneer of staining unprimed canvas with thinned oil paint to create bold fields of color, Ms. Frankenthaler was awarded a 2001 National Medal of Arts for her lifetime achievement. In 2005, she received the Philadelphia Academy Medal of Honor and was inducted into the Connecticut Women’s Hall of Fame, which are among countless honors Ms. Frankenthaler has received throughout her 55-year career. Over the years, she has had several one-woman exhibitions, including retrospectives at the Museum of Modern Art, the National Gallery of Art, and the Whitney Museum of American Art. Her works are included in virtually every major art museum collection in this country.