Joan Mitchell

Joan Mitchell (February 12, 1925 - October 30, 1992) was a ‘Second Generation’ Abstract Expressionist painter. Along with Lee Krasner, Grace Hartigan, and Helen Frankenthaler she was one of her era's few female painters to gain critical and public acclaim. Her paintings and editioned prints can be seen in major museums and collections across America and Europe.

Background

Mitchell was born in Chicago, Illinois. She studied at Smith College, Massachusetts, The Art Institute of Chicago, and at Columbia University, New York. [Joan Mitchell, Leaving America, text by Helen Molesworth ISBN 978-3-86521-490-4] She also studied at Hans Hofmann’s school in New York and traveled in France, Spain, and Italy. By the early 1950s, she was regarded as a leading artist in the New York School. In her early years as a painter, she was influenced by Vincent Van Gogh, Paul Cézanne, Wassily Kandinsky, and later by the work of Franz Kline and Willem de Kooning, among others.

Personal life

She married American publisher Barney Rosset in 1949 in Paris. Rosset is the Chicago-born American entrepreneur and former owner of the publishing house Grove Press, who is perhaps best known as the American publisher of the controversial and sexually charged novel "Tropic of Cancer" by Henry Miller. They divorced in 1952. In 1955, Mitchell moved to France to join Canadian painter Jean-Paul Riopelle, with whom she had a long, rich, and tumultuous relationship. They maintained separate homes and studios, but had dinner and drank together daily. They first lived in Paris, and then moved west to the town of Giverny, near Claude Monet's home.

Her paintings are expansive, often covering two separate panels. Landscape was the primary influence on her subject matter. She painted on unprimed canvas or white ground with gestural, sometimes violent brushwork. Her paintings are highly expressive and emotional.

During the period between 1960 and 1964, Mitchell moved away from the all-over style and bright colors of her earlier compositions, instead using sombre hues and dense central masses of color to express something inchoate and primordial. The marks on these works are extraordinary: the paint flung and squeezed on to the canvases, spilling and spluttering across their surfaces and smeared on with the artist's fingers. [Steidl Publication, Fall Winter 07 08, page 161- excerpt from Leaving America ISBN 978-3-86521-490-4]

She said that she wanted her paintings "to convey the feeling of the dying sunflower."

Mitchell died in 1992 in Vétheuil, a suburb of Paris, France.

The Joan Mitchell Foundation awards grants and stipends to painters, sculptors, and artist collectives. It is located in Manhattan at 155 Avenue of the Americas.

**"Photo of Joan Mitchell". [http://jfbauret.free.fr/images/aMitc.jpg]
**"Chord VII", 1987. [http://www.abstract-art.com/abstraction/l2_Grnfthrs_fldr/g0000_gr_inf_images/g130_mitchell_chord_VII.jpg]
**"La Grande Vallee". [http://www.rouen-musees.com/jpg/beaux_arts/peinture/20/mitchell.jpg]

Bibliography

* Marika Herskovic, [http://www.worldcatlibraries.org/oclc/50253062&tab=holdings "American Abstract Expressionism of the 1950s An Illustrated Survey,"] (New York School Press, 2003.) ISBN 0-9677994-1-4
* Marika Herskovic, [http://www.worldcatlibraries.org/oclc/50666793&tab=holdings "New York School Abstract Expressionists Artists Choice by Artists,"] (New York School Press, 2000.) ISBN 0-9677994-0-6
*Helen Molesworth, Joan Mitchell: Leaving America - New York to Paris 1958-1964 (Hauser & Wirth, London) ISBN 978-3-86521-490-4

Notes and References

External links

* [http://foundationcenter.org/grantmaker/joanmitchellfdn/index.html The Joan Mitchell Foundation]
* [http://www.artnet.com/awc/joan-mitchell.html Joan Mitchell catalogue in artnet's "Artist Works Catalogues"]
* [http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/mitchell_joan.html Joan Mitchell in Artcyclopedia]
* [http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/9880.html Joan Mitchell - University of California Press]