Across the expansive surface of Untitled, exuberant ribbons of color twist and turn, writhe and skate, float and fall, slicing through the churning mass of white pigment to create a work of astounding compositional balance and beauty. Hailing from circa 1958, during what is widely considered the most formative period of the artist’s career, Untitled represents the pinnacle of Mitchell’s unique mode of Abstract Expressionism. Painted at this pivotal early moment in Mitchell’s long and varied career – a period characterized by critically lauded and commercially successful gallery shows – the present work endures as a beacon of chromatic and textural expression, played out on the canvas with sense of intimacy and urgency that is singular to the artist.
Right: Claude Monet, The Japanese Bridge Water Lily Pond, 1899. THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART, NEW YORK.
Digital Image © RMN-Grand Palais
In 1947, after attending art school at the Art Institute of Chicago, Joan Mitchell moved to New York and was immediately enraptured by the city's dynamic art scene. Mitchell was a rare female presence in the otherwise male-centric world of the New York Abstract Expressionists. She moved in the same avant-garde circles as Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, and Hans Hofmann, both socially and professionally, and was included in the seminal Ninth Street Show in 1951. During this early point in her career, Mitchell drew influence from the vague figurations of Wassily Kandinsky, Arshile Gorky and Willem de Kooning, but over time she grew increasingly fascinated and challenged by the bold abstraction of Jackson Pollock. When Mitchell eventually transitioned to full-fledged abstraction in the 1950s, she channeled Pollock in her technique, applying thick layers of paint on the canvas with broad arm strokes and splashing drips from her paintbrush. Unlike Pollock, however, Mitchell maintained a firmer degree of planning and preparation, despite the fact that her abstract paintings such as Untitled seem so spontaneous compared to her early work. She methodically sketched before she started painting, and she was constantly evaluating and judging her canvases throughout her creative process. This technique rejected many elements of chance that played such an integral role in Pollock's work. Further, Mitchell never adopted Pollock's practice of laying his canvases on the floor while applying paint; instead, Mitchell stood her canvases upright, allowing gravity to influence the downward flow of paint, resulting in the smudges, drips and pools of color that lend Untitled its remarkably dynamic surface
Joan Mitchell’s anni mirabili : A Selection of Paintings from 1955-59 in Institutional Collections
In Untitled, jewellike specks of radiant purple, verdant green, and teal are tempered by strategically placed painterly elements, combining the gestural flair of Mitchell’s artistic peers with the variability and ferocity of the natural world. Anchored by bodies of concentrated line and pigment in the upper right and lower center of the composition, tendrils of color spiral outwards in controlled vortexes of pure expression, lending the painting an extraordinary dynamism and energy. Alongside this masterful command of her palette, Mitchell employs an incredible range of gestures, from weighty peaks of impasto, to carnal smears of pigment, to delicate passages of thin wash. Indeed, Mitchell’s mark-making is defined by a deep reverence and devotion to gesture – whether as calligraphic, spilled, dotted, thinned, blurred, smudged, or scraped – and its ability to convey to convey the power of memories and experiences, themes she professed as the basis of her painting.
"One of America's most brilliant 'Action-Painters.' At a time when many young artists are withdrawing introspectively from the bold experimentation of their elders … her art expands in the wake of her generous energy.”
Image © The Art Institute of Chicago / Art Resource, NY
Art © 2021 The Willem de Kooning Foundation / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Beginning in 1952, with her first solo exhibition at the New Gallery, Mitchell entered the artistic discourse surrounding Abstract Expressionism as an important leading voice, described as “one of America's most brilliant 'Action-Painters.' At a time when many young artists are withdrawing introspectively from the bold experimentation of their elders … her art expands in the wake of her generous energy.” (Irving Sandler, “Young Moderns and Modern Masters: Joan Mitchell,” ArtNews, March 1957, p. 32) This pivotal moment heralded a seminal period in Mitchell’s career, during which she moved back and forth between New York and Paris, seamlessly blending the expressive abstract machismo of the New York School with an elegant European fidelity to nature. For although Mitchell’s work reflects the gestural style and technical idiom of her male Abstract Expressionist peers, her output is simultaneously grounded in landscape and the beauty of nature, much like the European Impressionists, resulting in a unique style that invited such labels as Post-Cubism or Abstract Impressionism. Beneath her brush, the canvas of Untitled transforms into a performative arena, within which Mitchell has staged a furiously orchestrated symphony of chromatic activity. Breathtaking in its painterly bravura, Untitled constitutes a remarkable sensory engagement with nature, revealing Mitchell’s artistic fervor and personal turmoil, and providing an endlessly engrossing and dynamic visual experience.
