Joan Mitchell

For Joan Mitchell, painting was a means of existence. ‘Music, poems, landscape, and dogs make me want to paint’, she noted, ‘and painting is what allows me to survive’. Her abstract canvases and gestural brushstrokes are not representational, but they often reference people, pets and places of personal significance. This work is named after her beloved dog, Iva.

Born in Chicago in 1925, Mitchell spent formative periods of her career in New York and Paris. In 1955, she began dividing her time between France and the US, moving to the French capital in 1959. In 1968, Mitchell relocated to Vétheuil, thirty-five miles north-west of Paris. The open-plan layout of her studio there allowed her to work with greater freedom than ever before. Photographs from the time show the artist surrounded by enormous, multi-panel paintings. The size of these canvases required an athletic approach to painting, perhaps influenced by Mitchell’s experience as a champion figure skater in her youth.