Description:
abstract
Label Text:
Spidery rivulets of paint course toward the base of this canvas, while gestural strokes activate its surface with decisive mark making. Painted by the Abstract Expressionist artist Joan Mitchell after her move from New York to France in 1959, the Museum’s canvas belongs to a group of works she created in 1960–61 that were noted by critics for their light and radiance, as well as for their turbulence.
Mitchell attended Smith College from 1942 to 1944, leaving Northampton to finish her education at the Art Institute of Chicago. Mitchell described her paintings as “remembered landscapes which involve my feelings.” She used charcoal to structure her works, painting over the marks with house painter’s and artist’s brushes, her fingers, and rags. She explained that the apparent freedom of her paintings was actually “quite controlled. I don’t close my eyes and hope for the best. If I can get into the act of painting, and be free in the act, then I want to know what my brush is doing.”
Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=SC+1981.30 |
