JOAN MITCHELL PAINTS A SYMPHONY

An exploration of Joan Mitchell’s passionate, color-drenched, large-scale abstract paintings.

Focusing on 21 paintings that Mitchell completed in 1983 and 1984, inspired by France’s Grande Vallée, Rogers notes that the U.S.-born Mitchell never visited the scenic valley, though she lived in France. It was a beloved childhood place for the painter’s dear friend Gisèle Barreau. “Joan envisions the valley….She senses it, smells it, hears, it, feels it.” She “uses oil paint and canvas to create this valley of her mind.” Rogers beautifully conveys the artist’s intentions in ways young readers will understand: By abstracting nature, Mitchell captures her feelings about it. On the monumental size and multiplicity of Mitchell’s works, Rogers writes: “One canvas is not big enough to contain her mind’s picture.” Innerst’s illustrations are fittingly exuberant, rendering Mitchell in grayscale against expressionistic brush strokes and drips in warm yellows, blues, deep greens, and pinks. Readers see multiple images of the artist on one spread, her black bob, large eyeglasses, and elongated arms embodying her energy and drive. Mitchell’s black ladder is sometimes rickety looking, sometimes paint-covered: a partner in her up-and-down painter’s dance. Innerst’s paintings of paintings sometimes suggest a specific work from the period, such as La Grande Vallée II (Amaryllis). The penultimate spread celebrates the extraordinary series in its gallery opening: “Joan is ready to share her valley with the world.” In the last, two kids contemplate an enormous painting from “La Grande Vallée.”

Simply marvelous.