To Define a Feeling: Joan Mitchell - (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

Dedicated to Joan Mitchell's remarkable paintings from 1960 to 1965, this richly produced catalogue illuminates a pivotal chapter in the internationally acclaimed artist's career.

After settling permanently in France in 1959, the American painter Joan Mitchell embarked on a period of radical experimentation that diverged dramatically from her earlier work, replacing structured compositional frameworks with more untamed, atmospheric forms. She began
spending long stretches living on a sailboat along the Côte d'Azur, absorbing the effects of the shifting light, water, and rugged coastlines of the Mediterranean. Back in her Paris studio, these experiences gave rise to daring and moody canvases that engaged with landscape more directly and visibly than she ever had before.

Characterized by dense, central currents of deep greens and blues that veil luminous colors beneath, the paintings of this period pulse with turbulence and lyricism. The poet John Ashbery described them as "an unhurried meditation on bits of landscape and air," capturing Mitchell's ability to translate sensation and memory into paint. This catalogue, published on the occasion of the exhibition To define a feeling: Joan Mitchell, 1960-1965 at David Zwirner, New York, explores how these works advanced her approach to structure and color while engaging the enduring themes that define her oeuvre.

The volume features an introduction and an essay by the exhibition's curator, Sarah Roberts, a text by Saul Nelson on Mitchell's relationship to the critic Clement Greenberg, and exhibition reviews from the 1960s by Ashbery and Pierre Schneider, offering rich historical context for this transformative moment in the artist's career.

About the Author

Joan Mitchell (1925-1992) established a singular visual vocabulary over the course of her more than four decade career. Born in Chicago and educated at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, from which she received a BFA (1947) and an MFA (1950), Mitchell moved to New York in 1949 and was an active participant in the downtown arts scene. She began splitting her time between Paris and New York in 1955, before moving permanently to France in 1959. In 1968, Mitchell settled in Vétheuil, a small village northwest of Paris, while continuing to exhibit her work throughout the United States and Europe. When Mitchell passed away in 1992, her will specified that a portion of her estate should be used to establish a foundation to directly support visual artists.

John Ashbery (1927-2017) was born in Rochester, New York. He was the author of more than twenty-five books of poetry, including Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror (1975), which received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the National Book Award. The winner of many other prizes and awards both nationally and internationally, he received a National Humanities Medal, presented by President Barack Obama at the White House, in 2012.

Sarah Roberts joined the Joan Mitchell Foundation in June 2024 as Senior Director of Curatorial Affairs. She previously served as the Andrew W. Mellon Curator and Head of Painting and Sculpture at SFMOMA, where she co-curated Joan Mitchell (2021-2022), a major traveling retrospective with a catalogue co-authored with Katy Siegel. She served as primary author and research director of SFMOMA's Rauschenberg Research Project (2013), and co-curated the museum's 2017 presentation of the retrospective Robert Rauschenberg: Erasing the Rules. Other exhibitions include Amy Sherald: American Sublime (2024-2026); Louise Bourgeois Spiders (2017-2019); and Carol Bove and John Chamberlain: Converse (2019-2020).

Saul Nelson is a Junior Research Fellow and Teaching Associate in History of Art at Fitzwilliam College, University of Cambridge. His first book, Never Ending: Modernist Painting Past and Future, was published by Yale University Press in 2024. His writing has appeared in Art History, American Art, Oxford Art Journal, New Left Review, Critical Inquiry, and The London Review of Books.

Pierre Schneider (1925-2013) was an art historian and critic specializing in French modernism. Born in Antwerp, Belgium, he received his PhD in literature from Harvard University in 1953 before moving to Paris, where he worked with Georges Duthuit on the Henri Matisse archives. He later served as an art critic for L'Express and contributed to ARTnews. Schneider authored several studies on French painters, including a major monograph on Matisse, published in 1984.