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20/6/2002

The Paintings of Joan Mitchell

Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

The work of Joan Mitchell (1926-1992), whose highly charged, emotionally expressive paintings are among the most radiant works of postwar American art, will be the subject of a landmark retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art, opening June 21, 2002. Ten years after her death, The Paintings of Joan Mitchell testifies to the range of the artist's mastery, with many key works never before exhibited in this country. Following its presentation at the Whitney, which will run through September 29, 2002, the exhibition will travel to the Birmingham Museum of Art in Birmingham, Alabama, the Modern Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas, and The Phillips Collection in Washington, DC.

Although highly regarded by critics and fellow artists, Joan Mitchell's achievement has never received full public recognition. Her work has not been shown in New York in a major museum retrospective since a much smaller 1974 exhibition at the Whitney. The Paintings of Joan Mitchell covers the artist's entire career, from 1951 until her death, featuring nearly 60 works, both intimate and grand in scale.

In preparing the exhibition and its accompanying catalogue, guest curator Jane Livingston is drawing upon the artist's personal papers - material that the Estate of Joan Mitchell has never before made available to scholars. Ms. Livingston has had access to Mitchell's notes, letters and other documents revealing her connection to the New York art and poetry worlds. Mitchell was friendly with many artists and writers, including Sam Francis, Norman Bluhm, Frank O'Hara, and John Ashbery. Mitchell's husband of several years and lifelong friend, the publisher Barney Rosset, has cooperated extensively with this project.

"Joan Mitchell's paintings reflect a fierce commitment to her work and her distinctive vision of Abstract Expressionism in an era when men dominated American vanguard art," said Maxwell L. Anderson, Alice Pratt Brown Director of the Whitney. "This show will be the opportunity of a lifetime to see a carefully balanced overview of Mitchell's achievement. Our aim is to further both the critical and popular reputation of this great American painter."

"Joan Mitchell produced some of the most breathtaking paintings of her time," said Jane Livingston, guest curator of the exhibition. "She outpaced all but a handful of her male mentors and counterparts, while only Lee Krasner stands as a possible rival among her female counterparts. Mitchell's commitment to an explosive yet delicate, sometimes lyrically beautiful and sometimes aggressively stormy vocabulary of form, line and color evolved over the decades, but she remained devoutly abstract. Her work resonates with a passion for color, light, and landscape."

Assistant Curator Yvette Lee commented, "It is surprising how much of Mitchell's most important work is celebrated in France and virtually unknown in the U.S. Particularly by focusing on the great series La Grande Vallée, the exhibition and catalogue will go a long way toward educating the American public on unfamiliar aspects of Mitchell's oeuvre."

About the Artist
Joan Mitchell was born on February 12, 1926, in Chicago. Her maternal grandfather, Charles Louis Strobel, was a noted structural engineer and designer of bridges, including some on the Chicago River. Marion Strobel, the artist's mother, became known for her role in co-editing, with Harriet Monroe, Poetry magazine. Poetry published work by such writers as Edna St. Vincent Millay, Dylan Thomas, Thornton Wilder, and others whom Mitchell knew as a child. Mitchell's father, James Herbert Mitchell, a lifelong amateur artist, was an eminent physician.

Contemporary

Five by Five: Contemporary Artists on Contemporary Art
(Whitney Museum of American Art at Philip Morris) on view June 21 - July 5, 2002

This exhibition presents new, specially commissioned works by five contemporary artists-Reed Anderson, Rina Banerjee, Susan Graham, Ryan Humphrey, and Larry Krone-alongside five contemporary works from the Whitney's permanent collection by Mike Kelley, Donald Lipski, Charles Ray, Tom Sachs, and Christopher Wool. Each commissioned artist was invited to select a work from the collection that they found personally important or infuential, and then to create a work inspired by that piece. Image: Joan Mitchell, L'Arbre de Phyllis, 1991.

Whitney Museum of American Art 945 Madison Avenue at 75th Street New York, NY 10021
Hours:
Monday Closed
Tuesday-Thursday 11 am-6 pm
Friday 1-9 pm (6-9 pm pay-what-you-wish admission)
Saturday-Sunday 11 am-6 pm

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