Beschreibung:

Joan Mitchell American, 1925-1992 Untitled Signed J Mitchell (ll), inscribed 54 on the stretcher Oil on canvas 14 x 21 inches (35.56 x 53.34 cm) One of the renowned Abstract Expressionist painters of her generation, frequently overshadowed by the male icons of the movement, such as Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning Joan Mitchell yet asserts a powerful physicality and lyrical expressiveness in her work. Studying at The Art Institute of Chicago from 1947, she was exposed to their major collection of Impressionist painting, and developed a fondness for landscape, particularly in the medium of watercolor. In 1952, Mitchell moved to St. Mark's Place on the Lower East Side, where she created an impressive body of work in the following years. Klaus Kertess (Joan Mitchell New York, 1997, p.22) describes the artist's work as "more calculating, more consciously in search of beauty than her predecessors," like Jackson Pollock to whom she is often compared. A travelling fellowship to France inspired her to paint views of the city from her atelier window, and she eventually settled in France, fleeing the New York art world. Both Mitchell and Jean-Paul-Riopelle, her companion in France, were influenced by the horizon-less paintings, the reflections and colors of Monet's waterlilies when they were living near Giverny. The impasto and undulating pigments surrounded by a white ground in the Beskind picture recall many of the waterlily canvases, where the water's surface reflects the sky. Klaus Kertess writes, in an exhibition catalogue (Joan Mitchell Femicourt Painting 1960-1962, New York, 2005, n.p.) that "both Mitchell and Twombly played a major role in keeping drawing vividly alive on the painting's surface." C The Dorothy Levitt Beskind Collection
A 1/2 inch tear, vertical, at center right. Two 2 inch areas of cracquelure with losses at center right. A 2 x 1/2 inch area of cracquelure with losses at right lower center. Cracking at center and center left. A 1/2 inch loss at top center and 1/2 inch loss at lower right. Several smaller losses. Heavy surface dirt.