Joan Mitchell Quotes about Art

Joan Mitchell was a famous American born female painter associated with the Abstract Expressionism art movement. She is best known for her painterly abstract paintings and pastels. Famous Joan Mitchell artworks include “Parasol”, “Bracket”, “Rock Bottom”, “Ste. Hilaire”, “12 Hawks at 3 O’Clock”, “Hemlock”, “Sunflowers”, “No Rain”, “George Went Swimming at Barnes Hole, but It Got Too Cold”, and many important works are simply “Untitled”.

Mini biography: Born Joan Mitchell on the 12th of February, 1925 in Chicago, Illinois, United States of America. Her mother Marion Strobel was a poet and her father James Herbert Mitchell was a dermatologist. Mitchell married Barney Rosset in 1949 and they divorced in 1952. She also had a relationship with the Canadian painter Jean-Paul Riopelle between 1955 and 1979. The artist died on the 30th of October, 1992 in Neuilly-sur-Seine, France at the age of 67.

List of Famous Joan Mitchell Art Quotes

I’ve have tried to take from everybody. I can’t close my eyes or limit my experiences. Because I live now, I am more interested in art now. It’s different as any art is different from period to period. But it’s no better or worse. Joan Mitchell

When I am working, I am only aware of the canvas and what it tells me to do. I am certainly not aware of myself. Painting is a way of forgetting oneself. Joan Mitchell

They call me sauvage in Europe, because I’m direct and I say what I think. And you’re not supposed to. You’re supposed to be diplomatic, which I call hypocrisy, lying really. Joan Mitchell

I’ve always been told that I was a painter’s painter. What does that mean? That painters like my painting and the big wide world overlooks it, I suppose? Joan Mitchell

I want to paint the feeling of a space. It might be an enclosed space, it might be a vast space. It might be an object. Joan Mitchell

Light is something very special. It has nothing to do with white. Either you see it or you don’t. De la Tour doesn’t have light; Monet hasn’t any light. Matisse, Goya, Chardin, Van Gogh, Sam Francis, Kline have it. But it has nothing to do with being the best painter at all. Joan Mitchell

I think it’s also very masochistic to sit and cry in my spilt Scotch for areas in my life that have been very creepy and that I should have cut, left sooner. Joan Mitchell

It’s death. It’s hospitals. It’s my terrible nurses. You can add in Melville, Moby Dick a chapter on white. White is absolute horror. It is just the worst. Joan Mitchell

I carry my landscapes around with me. Joan Mitchell

Pop Art, Op Art, Flop Art and Slop Art. I fall into the last two categories. Joan Mitchell

Art Quotes About Joan Mitchell

Always when I look at anyone’s art, I get flashes of the person. If I walk into a room and there’s a painting by Joan Mitchell, I say, “There’s Joannie.” Or Grace, if it’s Grace Hartigan. And to me all art is self-portraits. Elaine de Kooning

Joan Mitchell Abstract Painting

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Related or similar popular artists include: Elaine de Kooning, Jackson Pollock, Helen Frankenthaler, Lee Krasner, and other Famous American Artists.