Joan Mitchell

Galerie Jean Fournier, Paris
Private Collection, Los Angeles (acquired from the above)
Christie's, New York, May 16, 2007, Lot 47
Private Collection (acquired from the above)
Christie's, London, July 1, 2014, Lot 56 (consigned by the above)
Acquired from the above by the present owner

Paris, Galerie Jean Fournier, Joan Mitchell peintures 1986 & 1987: RIVER LILLE CHORD, June - July 1987, p. 17, no. 9, illustrated in color

Michel Waldberg, Joan Mitchell, Paris, 1992, pp. 204-205, illustrated in color and p. 344 (text)
Klaus Kertess, Joan Mitchell, New York, 1997, p. 137, no. 86, illustrated in color

This painting is in excellent condition. Please contact the Contemporary Art Department at (212) 606-7254 for the condition report prepared by Terrence Mahon. The two canvases are jointly framed in a dark brown wood frame with a small float.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

Imbued with an ebullient immediacy of expression, Joan Mitchell’s rapturous River II sits amongst the most charismatic constituents of her unique abstract lexicon.  The fluidity of Mitchell’s gesture and the vivacity of her palette afford this painting a remarkable optimism that, as with the most superb examples of her art, is closely tied to remarkable personal circumstances at the time of its execution. Having undergone a significant surgical procedure in 1985, Mitchell had just begun to regain her physical strength by the time she created this work, marking her return to painting with a renewed sense of energy and commitment. Bearing resplendently gestural marks that manifest a vibrant spectrum of abstract splendor, this stunning creation embodies the artist’s rejuvenated self. With its expansive reach across two conjoined panels, River II broadcasts a panoramic celebration of the landscape that was instrumental in nurturing the artist, inspiring her in life and in art. Executed with a vibrant intensity, the present work conveys Mitchell’s conviction that “painting is the opposite of death, it permits one to survive, it also permits one to live.” (cited in Exh. Cat., Paris, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Joan Mitchell: Choix de peintures 1970-1982, 1982, n.p.)

Combining a visionary love of nature with a painterly idiom rooted in Abstract Expressionism, Mitchell’s return to the river as subject matter draws inspiration from the glittering stretch of the Seine that graced the view from her home in Vétheuil. Having initially moved to Paris at an early stage in her career in 1959, Mitchell’s continued residence in France is of great art historical significance: here the artist forged a vital link between American Ab/Ex tendencies and the profoundly rich painterly idioms of Europe. With an incomparably rich visual history, Paris had long encouraged the effect of artistic zenith amongst many modern masters including Pablo Picasso and Vincent van Gogh.  Having continually found inspiration in the work of van Gogh, Mitchell would explicitly reference the artist’s melancholic crows in her 1987-1988 work No Birds. As a contrastingly optimistic precursor to this work, Mitchell’s luscious palette of aquatic blues, verdant greens and powdery yellows, recalls the captivating plein air paintings of Claude Monet and the Impressionist painters synonymous with French cultural history. Crucially, Monet’s ethereal depictions of the Vétheuil landscape foreshadow Mitchell’s exploration of the area as a rural ideal outside of the Parisian urban centre. It was in 1968 that she relocated to serene two-acre estate in the suburban commune. The artist was enamoured by the space, light and seclusion afforded by this bucolic setting.  As Mitchell’s biographer Patricia Albers describes, "nearly every window … commanded a dazzling view: between the river and the road below lay a wonderfully unmanicured wet-grass field dotted with locusts, pines, pear trees, willows, ginkgos, and sycamores. Balls of golden mistletoe hung in the trees, their roundness contrasting with the dark rectangularity of a rigorously pruned hedge. Everything moved. Birds twittered and swooped. Wind ruffled the foliage. Church bells rang. Passing blue back and rust barges, laundry flapping on their decks, roiled the Seine, a meandering ribbon of light." (Patricia Albers, Joan Mitchell: Lady Painter, New York, 2011, p. 313) Thus whilst Mitchell engages in a gestural dialogue with the work of Sam Francis, Willem de Kooning and Jackson Pollock, her unique insistence on the outside world as a source of inspiration sets her apart from her Abstract Expressionist contemporaries.  Here painterly freedom is harnessed to recreate the pleasures of observing an ever fluctuating natural world.

Far from simply providing an abstract evocation of the beauty of the nature, however, Mitchell’s River II also indulges in the subject’s metaphorical capacities. Evident in the free flow of the painted surface, she endows the river with a restorative power, capable of washing away afflictions. Mitchell’s widely arching and strikingly agile strokes of paint, drawn ecstatically across the canvas, speak of a pure delight in her renewed physical freedom.  As a vibrant celebration of her return to the medium, River II marks the beginning of one of Mitchell’s most stunning creative periods, expressing a vitality that belies her artistic maturity. As curator and art historian Richard Marshall remarked, “With renewed self-assurance and energy, she continued to make grand, confident paintings that convey an impression or memory of a familiar landscape—both a physical and a mental one.” (Richard Marshall in Exh. Cat., New York, Cheim & Read, Joan Mitchell: The Last Paintings, 1982-1992, 2011, n.p.)