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Lot Essay
“[Mitchell’s] works epitomize a shift in Abstract Expressionism from chance, hazard, and the uncontrolled freedom of the unconscious to a new direction with breath, freshness, and light within a highly structured armature.” - Paul Schimmel (“Joan Mitchell’s Sixth Sense,” Mitchell Trees, exh. cat., Cheim & Read, New York, 2014, n.p.).
One of the most critically acclaimed of the Abstract Expressionists, Joan Mitchell’s career broke new ground and has inspired countless generations of artists and viewers. An extraordinary example of her late career output, Hours clearly articulates the painter’s ability to transcend the machismo of her New York School colleagues in favor of rich lyricism that fully investigates the picture plane and its absorptive properties. “Her works epitomize a shift in abstract expressionism from chance, hazard, and the uncontrolled freedom of the unconscious to a new direction with breath, freshness, and light within a highly structured armature” (P. Schimmel, quoted in J. Yau, “Joan Mitchell’s Sixth Sense,” Mitchell Trees, exh. cat., Cheim & Read, New York, 2014, n.p.). Breaking from the mainstream and embracing an inspired application of thin layers, Mitchell created an immediacy that meets the viewer head-on at the very surface. Building up painterly strata while simultaneously enforcing the flatness of the canvas, her oeuvre stands out for its singular marriage of European tradition and American innovation.
Rendered across two vertical panels, Hours is full of expressive energy as Mitchell’s dynamic brushwork somersaults across the composition in a flurry of thin layers and dripping strokes. Highly concerned with the idea of all-over painting, she did away with any semblance of direction in order to explore the canvas support. On the left, a swirl of black and dark blue gestures hovers over lightning yellow that sweeps into the lower portion of the right panel. There, it collides with a hurricane of verdant green that floats atop myriad colors in a dense jumble of marks that threaten to break forth from the edges of the painting. Trails of liquid paint travel up and down, allowing us some insight into Michell’s non-traditional working process. They also serve to lift the painting across the white ground, giving our eyes a vertical traverse to follow through the storm of paint. Gravity ceases to exist within the confines of the canvas as each stroke makes itself known and then quickly joins its brethren in a powerful display. Reviewing the exhibition in which Hours was first presented, John Yau wrote for Artforum, “Her compositions are made up of specific strokes of color, each of which is a discrete unit. Her gestural notations function like staves: they present their own external form, while being used to enclose something. The unpainted white ground is, more than ever, an integral part of each painting” (J. Yau, "Joan Mitchell: Robert Miller Gallery," Artforum, February 1990, p. 137). Mitchell established a conversation about pictorial depth and its negation in the abstract realm, allowing the primed canvas to become an equal with her colorful incursions.
During the 1950s, Mitchell made a name for herself in New York as she was tapped to exhibit in Leo Castelli’s highly-influential “Ninth Street Exhibition” and had several solo shows at the Stable Gallery. She was also one of the few female members of “The Club”, the informal art and theory gathering that included such visionaries as Willem de Kooning and Isamu Noguchi. However, spurred by several visits abroad and meeting with other expatriates, Mitchell moved permanently to Paris in 1959 where she would find more freedom for her expressive new work that combined the improvisational nature of the New York School with the French Post-Impressionist emphasis on exploring color. In 1967 she moved further out into the countryside near Giverny where the open air and gardens only served to highlight the inspiration she derived from nature. It was there that she was able to more fully realize her own signature style which is on display in Hours.
“[Mitchell’s] compositions are made up of specific strokes of color, each of which is a discrete unit. Her gestural notations function like staves: they present their own external form, while being used to enclose something.” - John Yau ("Joan Mitchell: Robert Miller Gallery," Artforum, February 1990, p. 137).
The esteemed critic Peter Schjeldahl held Mitchell in high regard, noting emphatically in the early 1970s, "If the current revisionist study of Abstract Expressionism yields any lasting benefits, I must believe that among them will be a recognition of Mitchell as one of the best American painters not only of the fifties, but of the sixties and seventies as well. [...] The wonder is that an art of such obviously taxing intensity has been sustained without compromise for so many years - years of comparative neglect that cannot have been easy on a woman as aware of her own talents as Mitchell surely must be" (P. Schjeldahl, “Joan Mitchell: To Obscurity and Back,” New York Times, April 30, 1972, p. D23). Hinging upon the tense relationship between figure and ground through a studied juxtaposition of color and gestural nuance, Mitchell’s oeuvre eschewed more chaotic modes favored by her peers and instead chose to find inspiration in daily experience. Moved more by Cezanne, Kandinksy, and the landscape around the Seine than the grit and gusto of New York, works like Hours show an unparalleled devotion to creating abstractions that glow with a singular light.
One of the most critically acclaimed of the Abstract Expressionists, Joan Mitchell’s career broke new ground and has inspired countless generations of artists and viewers. An extraordinary example of her late career output, Hours clearly articulates the painter’s ability to transcend the machismo of her New York School colleagues in favor of rich lyricism that fully investigates the picture plane and its absorptive properties. “Her works epitomize a shift in abstract expressionism from chance, hazard, and the uncontrolled freedom of the unconscious to a new direction with breath, freshness, and light within a highly structured armature” (P. Schimmel, quoted in J. Yau, “Joan Mitchell’s Sixth Sense,” Mitchell Trees, exh. cat., Cheim & Read, New York, 2014, n.p.). Breaking from the mainstream and embracing an inspired application of thin layers, Mitchell created an immediacy that meets the viewer head-on at the very surface. Building up painterly strata while simultaneously enforcing the flatness of the canvas, her oeuvre stands out for its singular marriage of European tradition and American innovation.
Rendered across two vertical panels, Hours is full of expressive energy as Mitchell’s dynamic brushwork somersaults across the composition in a flurry of thin layers and dripping strokes. Highly concerned with the idea of all-over painting, she did away with any semblance of direction in order to explore the canvas support. On the left, a swirl of black and dark blue gestures hovers over lightning yellow that sweeps into the lower portion of the right panel. There, it collides with a hurricane of verdant green that floats atop myriad colors in a dense jumble of marks that threaten to break forth from the edges of the painting. Trails of liquid paint travel up and down, allowing us some insight into Michell’s non-traditional working process. They also serve to lift the painting across the white ground, giving our eyes a vertical traverse to follow through the storm of paint. Gravity ceases to exist within the confines of the canvas as each stroke makes itself known and then quickly joins its brethren in a powerful display. Reviewing the exhibition in which Hours was first presented, John Yau wrote for Artforum, “Her compositions are made up of specific strokes of color, each of which is a discrete unit. Her gestural notations function like staves: they present their own external form, while being used to enclose something. The unpainted white ground is, more than ever, an integral part of each painting” (J. Yau, "Joan Mitchell: Robert Miller Gallery," Artforum, February 1990, p. 137). Mitchell established a conversation about pictorial depth and its negation in the abstract realm, allowing the primed canvas to become an equal with her colorful incursions.
During the 1950s, Mitchell made a name for herself in New York as she was tapped to exhibit in Leo Castelli’s highly-influential “Ninth Street Exhibition” and had several solo shows at the Stable Gallery. She was also one of the few female members of “The Club”, the informal art and theory gathering that included such visionaries as Willem de Kooning and Isamu Noguchi. However, spurred by several visits abroad and meeting with other expatriates, Mitchell moved permanently to Paris in 1959 where she would find more freedom for her expressive new work that combined the improvisational nature of the New York School with the French Post-Impressionist emphasis on exploring color. In 1967 she moved further out into the countryside near Giverny where the open air and gardens only served to highlight the inspiration she derived from nature. It was there that she was able to more fully realize her own signature style which is on display in Hours.
“[Mitchell’s] compositions are made up of specific strokes of color, each of which is a discrete unit. Her gestural notations function like staves: they present their own external form, while being used to enclose something.” - John Yau ("Joan Mitchell: Robert Miller Gallery," Artforum, February 1990, p. 137).
The esteemed critic Peter Schjeldahl held Mitchell in high regard, noting emphatically in the early 1970s, "If the current revisionist study of Abstract Expressionism yields any lasting benefits, I must believe that among them will be a recognition of Mitchell as one of the best American painters not only of the fifties, but of the sixties and seventies as well. [...] The wonder is that an art of such obviously taxing intensity has been sustained without compromise for so many years - years of comparative neglect that cannot have been easy on a woman as aware of her own talents as Mitchell surely must be" (P. Schjeldahl, “Joan Mitchell: To Obscurity and Back,” New York Times, April 30, 1972, p. D23). Hinging upon the tense relationship between figure and ground through a studied juxtaposition of color and gestural nuance, Mitchell’s oeuvre eschewed more chaotic modes favored by her peers and instead chose to find inspiration in daily experience. Moved more by Cezanne, Kandinksy, and the landscape around the Seine than the grit and gusto of New York, works like Hours show an unparalleled devotion to creating abstractions that glow with a singular light.