| As a leading second-generation abstract expressionist, Joan Mitchell cannot
be credited with unheralded artistic innovation, but she was nonetheless an
extraordinarily
important figure of the postwar era. One among a number of artists influenced
in the early 1950s by the novel styles and techniques of painters such as Willem
De Kooning, Franz Kline, Jackson Pollock, and Mark Rothko, she never intended
to be an innovator. Freed from the burdens connected with such ambition, she
was able to exploit the aspects of abstract expressionism that she valued most.
The wellspring of her success was her uncompromising individuality—as distinguished
from originality—her singular ability to live, work, and make other people
see things the way she saw them. Considering that Mitchell emerged in an era
when the art world prized the originality of male painters above almost all
other forms of expression, her canonical status today is all the more impressive. . . .
:: Jonathan P. Binstock, Curator of Contemporary Art
Corcoran Gallery of Art |
Text excerpted from A Capital Collection: Masterworks from
the Corcoran Gallery of Art.
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:: The Curator's Journals Project
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