Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Feisty and sharp-tongued, the American abstract painter Mitchell (1926-1992) could be her own worst enemy. Kertess, an adjunct curator for Drawings at New York's Whitney Museum and long-time friend, recalls that during drunken evenings at New York bars in the 1950s, she "might as easily shake a male's genital as his hand." Her personal life was as stormy as her painting could be. From a cultured, well-to-do Chicago family, she married Barney Rossett (of Grove Press fame) in 1949 only to leave him two years later. In 1957, after she had moved to France where she would stay until her death, she began a rocky 25-year relationship with Canadian abstract painter Jean-Paul Riopelle, who won more fame than Mitchell but achieved much less. At a time when women were not admitted to the inner circle of macho abstract painters, ignored in group exhibitions, Mitchell created fierce cathedrals of color, inspired by the countryside near Vétheuil, France, not far from Monet's famous garden at Giverny. Typically, Mitchell said she had no use for Monet and much preferred Van Gogh. Even in reduced size, the 120 color reproductions are strikingly dramatic, with alternately dark, stormy clouds of paint raining watery streaks of pigment and frenetic brushstrokes of primary color. In one brilliantly colored series, "La Grande Vallée," the painter foreshadows her own death after a lengthy battle with cancer. Mitchell's work would eventually prove that she was one of the greatest abstract painters of her generation, and the present book, patiently recounting her life and career in a non-judgmental fashion, is an important step toward the long-overdue recognition that she deserves. (Apr.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
