Joan Mitchell: Quotes about painting

“I started in, got it [former Monet's house, where he lived 1878 - 1881 in Vetheuil; [Mitchell bought the house and used it mainly first in the weekends] in summer of 67, Yeah, well, and then I started... I was still painting at Fremicourt and I remember starting the 'Sunflowers' [series, c. 1969-72], which I saw in Vetheuil and painted them in Fremicourt, you see... The thing about [the studio in] Fremicourt, also about St. Marks: I had to roll [large] paintings to get them out, which was a real drag, because of thickness [of the paint which cracked]. And when I started painting in Vetheuil, you can just take the [stretched] paintings out [in open air]. Well, that really changed unconsciously an awful lot of... Walk them out stretched, it's great.”

Joan Mitchell

second side of the first tape
1975 - 1992, Oral history interview with Joan Mitchell, 1986

Change , Summer , Painting , Housing

“And then the spring of [19]'48 I toddled off to Paris on a Liberty ship... Yes, and arriving in Le Havre on that Liberty ship and seeing all those—the sun was coming up—and seeing all those ships sunk.. It was hardly... I mean, war, war, war, war…. I went to Paris, and I stayed with Zuka and Louis [Mitelberg] [her husband then, the cartoonist 'Tim']. And I looked for a place—and found it on Rue Gallande. Across the river was Notre Dame. That was all of four dollars a month, with a hole on the stairs as a toilet and a spigot with cold water and one light-bulb. That was all the electricity there was. But this view, I mean, God!... Saint Julien le Pauvre [Greek Orthodox Church, oldest in Paris] was right in front of me. And so I painted there.”

Joan Mitchell

first side of the first tape
1975 - 1992, Oral history interview with Joan Mitchell, 1986

God , War , Spring , Light

“[Mitchell wanted in her painting].. the feeling in a line of poetry which makes it different from, a line of prose... Sentimentality is self-pity, your own swamp. Weeping in your own beer is not a feeling. It lacks dignity and hasn't an outside reference.”

Joan Mitchell

Quote of Joan Mitchell from an interview with Irving Sandler (c. 1956); as cited in Joan Mitchell, Lady Painter, by Patricia Albers, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 3 may 2011, p. 244
1950 - 1975

Feeling , Beer , Painting

“Well, I once wrote in - it's in Joan Mitchell Paints a Picture, as I remember, Irving Sandler, a long time ago, that I hated the word 'Nature' with a capital 'N.'... But now I accept it, I suppose. I mean, I really like trees and flowers and dogs and all that much more than.... a lot of other people [do]... You know, I really do get pleasure out of... Great pleasure. Out of just looking at... But I have fun here [New York] too, you know.”

Joan Mitchell

Tape number two, side A
1975 - 1992, Oral history interview with Joan Mitchell, 1986

Hate , People , Pleasure , Dogs

“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?... Well, I know... To me, it would have meant that - this is pre this new rage in buying and selling paintings - that, I think, that the formal values, like light, space, color, all those things that a painting is made up of, as well as the Jacob going up the ladder or Venus on the half shell or something [chuckles] would be what interested the painter. And perhaps the public would want the picture of the Christ child, so to speak. You know what I mean.”

Joan Mitchell

Tape number two, side A
1975 - 1992, Oral history interview with Joan Mitchell, 1986

World , Color , Thinking , Light

“Oh, early Kandinsky.. [stuck her early]. Well no, they had that at the Art Institute in Chicago, don't forget. See, everybody, to do 'modern art' then [New York, mid-forties], seemed to me, when you were going 'modern' [both chuckle], it was Picasso. I mean, everybody. But I avoided that like the plague. I thought... I loved Picasso, but it just wasn't for me... Well, I don't! I have some of those [early] paintings from LeLavandou - they're in storage - and from Mexico. They were Expressionist landscapes, or boats on the beach or something like that, which I still do. Sort of going abstract, going towards..”

Joan Mitchell

first side of the first tape
1975 - 1992, Oral history interview with Joan Mitchell, 1986

Love , Art , Painting , Forgetting

“I might get an idea [for the start of a painting] sitting looking at the river, or something, or a specific.... Yeess. I'm sure, yes, I'm sure it [the environment] influences me in terms of green and gray and color and... I mean, New York light is so different, and it always hits me when I come here [in New York], and it excites me to see great extremes of dark and light and no nuance - which I love. But there the Isle de France [round about Paris] has that, you know, filtered light that is that.. where even on a gray day, the green is very green, and the red is very red.... I think walking out barefoot and moving the paintings, being able to move them out of my studio [in Vetheuil] for transportation, things like that have had [influence]... As well as the landscape. Lake Michigan was pretty important, you know.”

Joan Mitchell

Tape number two, side A
1975 - 1992, Oral history interview with Joan Mitchell, 1986

Love , Color , Idea , Thinking

“And the first studio I went to [in New York, c. 1950]... I was trying to find de Kooning because he had a painting at the Whitney, which was in the old Studio School [Eighth Street], you know... And I thought I would like to know him. I really dug his painting, and I dug Gorky's painting... But the first studio I went into was Franz Kline... and there were all these Klines, unstretched, hanging on the brick walls. Beautiful. You know, with the telephone book drawings all over the floor, and Kline yakking away, and it was just, I was out of my mind! And so from then on I got involved in the Artists Club. They allowed very few women in, and I was included for $35 a year. And I got very involved in the Cedar Bar and the whole thing..”

Joan Mitchell

second side of the first tape
1975 - 1992, Oral history interview with Joan Mitchell, 1986

Women , Books , School , Beauty