Abstract Expressionism
joanmitchellfoundation.org

Joan Mitchell (1926-1992)
Joan Mitchell’s death at the early age of 66 from lung cancer leaves us to lament the absence of this "ecstatic and inventive colorist" (as John Russell calls her in The New York Time obituary), this "lyric poet in paint" (as Jed Perl describes her in Gallery Going: Four Seasons in the Art World). Perl’s review of a 1990 show quoted at length from the poet John Ashberry’s 1970 comment about Mitchell’s relation to nature that "one’s feelings about nature are at different removes from it. There will be elements of things seen even in the most abstracted impression; otherwise the feeling is likely to disappear and leave an object in its place. At other times feelings remain close to the subject, which is nothing against them; in fact, feelings that leave the subject intact may be freer to develop, in and around the theme and independent of it as well." Perl went on to comment that Mitchell might have been the only person working in an abstract expressionist vein in 1990 who did paintings that were not objects, and concluded, "The best Mitchell’s are authentically civilized experiences. Our appetites are focused and clarified. Her colors are the beautiful colors of the world: tans of flesh and greens of landscape, but also the purple of the iris and the tawny yellow of the pear."

Color plays a crucial role in Mitchell’s prints as well. In Tyler Graphics: The Extended Image, a book published to accompany a large show at the Walker Aert Center, E. C. Goossen points out that "the Abstract Expressionist generation out of which she came was forever searching for abstract subject matter with transcendent implications, even though it professed to believe that art was its own message. . . . But unlike those contemporary painters who ‘discover’ their subject in the process of painting, Mitchell works from an idea and builds on it." Goossen adds that while her prints are "most distinctly prints and not paintings or ‘works on paper,’ they do reflect the problems and solutions of Mitchell’s works over the years. They also represent some outlets for her art that have been unavailable to her in painting and thus have clearly expanded her oeuvre as a whole. One of those outlets is an apparent sense of relief from the burden of painting. To one so immersed in the meaningfulness of each act and each response of the matière, the very lightness of the crayon and the possibility of testing colors beforehand so that they will not invade others without her permission seems to have been inspirational." Goossen singles out the three Sides of a River color lithographs (each measuring about 4’ x 3’) as prints "in which theme and execution are indistinguishable" and regards them as standing with Mitchell’s best paintings as among her crowning achievements.

Since her untimely death, museums and collectors have been gobbling up her works; every one taken off the market means that those seeking works by this powerful artist will have less to choose from and at higher prices. ...

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