Artist Profile: Joan Mitchell
I am reading Ninth Street Women by Mary Gabriel. It is a wonderfully written account of the abstract expressionism period roughly between 1929 and 1959 and focuses on five of the most important female artists of that time. I’m about a quarter of a way through but what already stands out to me is how much emigration, the Depression and WWII impacted art at that time. It permeated everything and is a great reminder that art and life cannot be separated. We are impacted by what is happening in the world. Art cannot be compartmentalized.
This is a first of a series of posts about abstract artists. I am starting with Joan Mitchell because she is one of the first abstract painters whom I fell in love with in my early years of studying art. Mitchell was a pioneer female artist at a time when the art world was male dominated.
I think of her work during this period to be energetic and colorful. Katy Siegel, who co-curated a show of Mitchell's work for the Baltimore Museum of Art, says that "Her work is strong, muscular, declarative, aggressive. It is everything that abstract expressionist thought that it wanted to be."
Joan grew up in a privileged and cultured home. She was exposed to a myriad of arts and later attended the Art Institute of Chicago. Later, she lived much of the time in Paris and was conflicted between being considered a European or an American artist. She didn’t feel like she fit in on either shore. But, she was resilient and confident. She is quoted as saying "Perhaps if I hadn't had to fight, I would have quit. I don't know. I doubt it, though." She had a tough personality, was acerbic and didn’t take fools lightly. Yet, when you look at her paintings, you can see a sensitivity through the explosive brush strokes.
Quick facts….
Joan was born in 1925 Chicago and graduated from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1947.
After college, she traveled to France for a year and started experimenting with more abstract art (1947).
She moved to New York City in 1949, where she quickly established herself as the leading young abstract expressionist.
Around 1955, she then started to divide her time between New York and France.
Mitchell died on October 30, 1992.
Did you know…
Joan was a published poet by age 10.
She was a champion tennis player and diver, and a competitive figure skater. Mitchell was named “Figure Skating Queen of the Midwest” in 1942 and competed in the national championship that year, though she finished a disappointing fourth.
Author Patricia Albers reported that Mitchell had both synesthesia and a photographic memory.
She was know to have sarcastically said “Not bad for a lady painter”.
If you would like to learn more about Joan, here are some interesting links:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-intense-life-of-abstract-expressionist-joan-mitchell/
Acknowledgements:
- Thank you to Ivy Grosk for assisting in the research and draft of this article.
- A major inspiration and source is from Mary Gabriel’s Ninth Street Women, a book I highly recommend.
