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Lot Essay
Glowing in its abstract majesty, Joan Mitchell’s Untitled is an exhilarating canvas from a pivotal moment of her life. Despite its modest size, this work conveys the diverse possibilities of the Abstract-Expressionist painter’s brushstrokes, with long swaths of azure dripping from the top of the canvas onto quick orange marks of tactile paint, reminiscent of her contemporaries Willem de Kooning and Jackson Pollock.
Mitchell completed this extraordinary painting in the year following her relocation from New York to Paris. Untitled marks this crucial moment when the artist continued to deepen her practice by transitioning from her earlier highly expressive gestures to a more personal and lyrical voice inspired by nature. The central area of blues and black-greens prominently stands out against a light ground of variegated pale tones. The horizontal bands of blues and umbers are her felt responses to the sky and terrains; “without intending realistic descriptions of landscapes and seascapes, Mitchell does sometimes evoke memories of them" (J. Bernstock, Joan Mitchell, New York, 1988, p. 57). Even though Mitchell’s heightened spontaneity projects a deceptive appearance of having performed the painting swiftly, she usually paints after prolonged periods of contemplation to assure the flawless execution of each stroke of emotions. Accomplished with sophisticated gestures, every brush mark in Untitled is composed with a bit of nature and a bit of sensation.
Mitchell completed this extraordinary painting in the year following her relocation from New York to Paris. Untitled marks this crucial moment when the artist continued to deepen her practice by transitioning from her earlier highly expressive gestures to a more personal and lyrical voice inspired by nature. The central area of blues and black-greens prominently stands out against a light ground of variegated pale tones. The horizontal bands of blues and umbers are her felt responses to the sky and terrains; “without intending realistic descriptions of landscapes and seascapes, Mitchell does sometimes evoke memories of them" (J. Bernstock, Joan Mitchell, New York, 1988, p. 57). Even though Mitchell’s heightened spontaneity projects a deceptive appearance of having performed the painting swiftly, she usually paints after prolonged periods of contemplation to assure the flawless execution of each stroke of emotions. Accomplished with sophisticated gestures, every brush mark in Untitled is composed with a bit of nature and a bit of sensation.