"I'm surprised often that you're not looking at the trees with me - and even feel sometimes I am you painting. They call this fusion and say it's disastrous...It's not much fun being nuts - or living among so many amorphous green trees and ideas."
"I think any involvement of any kind is to forget not being alive. Painting is one of those things. I am alive, we are alive, we are not aware of what is coming next. I am afraid of death. Abandonment is death also. I mean: somebody leaves and other people also leave. I never say goodbye to people…."
"It’s (the color white, ) 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."
5 comments:
Thank you Paul.
Great that you have also posted her quotes.
She is eternally important.
Her work is top notch. If the same work was by a man she would be talked about in the same breath as De Kooning, Rothko, Pollock, etc. I have yet to see a truly weak painting in her oeuvre. I am sure they are there. No one is immune that is for sure.
A little off subject but in the same realm is the whole East Coast vs. West Coast argument. I think Diebenkorn has suffered from the whole East Coast bias over the years. He is starting to get the recognition he deserves but way to late. Tell me there is a better American painter of the 20th C. He was extremely versatile and the work was stronger for a longer period of time than most of the greats. Sorry for the rant but had to get that one out there.
Yes, I was disappointed that only one of her paintings was included in the big Ab-Ex show at MoMA this year. Luckily I got to see her VERY strong, Paintings from the Fifties show @ Lennon Weinberg a month or so ago.
Definitely being a woman keeps her from getting her due but also to a lesser extent, the fact that she abandoned NYC for France. And this plays in to your East Coast/ West Coast comment---the powers that be here are and were very NY centric.
Can I suggest reading Joan Mitchell: Lady Painter?
It just came out. I started it the other day and so far it's really good. More painters need attitudes like hers IMO.
Really love your blog...I'll be back more often. Thanks!
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