Loving Joan Mitchell

“Music takes time to listen to and ends, writing takes time and ends, movies end, ideas and even sculpture take time… Painting does not. It never ends, it is the only thing that is both continuous and still.” —Joan Mitchell

A majestic tour-de-force teeming with fierce, muscular brushstrokes and a kaleidoscopic display of the most powerful colors in her arsenal, Joan Mitchell’s ‘Untitled,’ circa 1959, boasts all of the hallmarks of her most celebrated pictures, making it a true masterpiece from the most pivotal and exciting decades of her career. In 1959, Mitchell traded the gritty downtown scene in New York for an older, richer tradition in France, moving to Paris permanently and joining a thriving intellectual community of creatives. It was at this time that she was at her creative, commercial and critical peak.

A powerful declaration of Mitchell’s almost preternatural understanding of color and the fearlessness with which she wielded her brush, Untitled celebrates the artist’s ability to meld bravura with grace. Using broad, arcing brushstrokes Mitchell dragged the pigment across the canvas, creating an enormous maelstrom that envelops the viewer in its seven-foot expanse.

We are thrilled to be offering this exquisite work as a highlight of our 20th Century Evening Sale.