Joan Mitchell

March 21, 2011
In this first biography of renowned abstract expressionist painter Joan Mitchell (1925â1992), Albers (Shadows, Fire, Snow: The Life of Tina Modotti) vividly chronicles the artist's tortuous journey from her wealthy upbringing in Chicago to her defiant student days at Smith College, and as a young painter at the Art Institute of Chicago when "the wisdom of the day held that women couldn't really paint." Albers focuses on Mitchell's artistic life as a rising and respected New York School painter and her years in France from the late 1950s until her death. Albers deftly balances Mitchell's often difficult temperament (some found her "cranky and contentious"; she was an insomniac and alcoholic) with her artistic vision. Mitchell described her mind as a mental "suitcase filled with pictures," and Albers centers her narrative on the "blessing and curse" of Mitchell's vivid visual memory and synesthesia. Albers astutely analyzes Mitchell's paintings, and one wishes she had done so more often throughout a generally comprehensive study. Vibrantly written and carefully researched, including numerous interviews with Mitchell's former husband, Barney Rosset (former owner of Grove Press), friends, lovers, and colleagues, Albers constructs a fluid, energetic narrative of Mitchell's complicated life and work. 8 pages of color photos, 62 photos in text.

March 15, 2011

Independent curator Albers (Shadows, Fire, Snow: The Life of Tina Modotti, 2002) presents a sizable biography of Joan Mitchell (1925–1992), a member of the New York School of Abstract Expressionist painters who changed the face of the art world in the 1950s.

Raised in luxury as an heiress to the fortune of famed Chicago engineer Charles Louis Strobel, Mitchell competed for the national figure-skating title as a teen in the early 1940s. She would follow her own path to success, dropping out of Smith College (where, she noted, "I got a B+ in art") to attend the Art Institute of Chicago. She took up residence in New York's Greenwich Village in late 1949, becoming part of a vibrant art scene along with soon-to-be famous names like Jackson Pollock, Franz Kline and Willem de Kooning. The book begins a bit slow, but as Mitchell, armed with talent and a stormy personality, begins to establish herself as an important painter, Albers begins to find her footing as a biographer. The author is at her best when writing about the art, managing the difficult trick of bringing visual work alive on the written page. Eventually dividing her time between New York and France, Mitchell inhabited an alcohol-fueled world of artists, poets and musicians, including her longtime companion, French-Canadian artist Jean-Paul Riopelle, poet Frank O'Hara and playwright Samuel Beckett. Discussion of Mitchell's turbulent personal relationships, her lifelong pursuit of psychoanalytic treatment and her synesthesia and eidetic memory all inform what the author calls her "glorious, all-consuming involvement with memory, landscape, and paint." "Lady Painter" is how Mitchell often referred to herself, and though her experience as one of few women in a male-dominated milieu is present throughout the narrative, it is not the focus. As Albers writes, Mitchell "refused to differentiate herself from male artists," and "did not want to be considered among the forgotten or neglected."

A revealing portrait of a complex personality, this biography provides insight into the work of a master artist, but is perhaps too detailed to appeal to casual readers.

(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

December 1, 2010

Mitchell was a steel heiress and debutante who won ice-skating competitions and went on to marry Barney Rosset Jr., owner/publisher of Grove Press. Oh, and she was one of the more remarkable figures in 20th-century American painting. Mitchell's life is intriguing enough; as told by Albers, author of the excellent Shadows, Fire, Snow: The Life of Tina Modotti, it should make for a nonstop read. Pair with Gail Levin's Lee Krasner, out in March 2011 from Morrow.

Copyright 2010 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from April 15, 2011
Painter Mitchell is no mere second-generation abstract expressionist, Albers avers in the first comprehensive biography of this ruthlessly independent, flagrantly blunt, highly educated artist. Mitchells ravishingly chromatic, organically structured, endlessly evocative paintings are unique, and Albers learned why. Mitchell had synesthesia. For her, music, the letters of the alphabet, people, and emotions all emitted pulsing colors. Possessed, too, of eidetic memory, her visual recall was acute. This perceptual otherness, along with her technical mastery, underlies the push-pull vitality and ecstatic beauty of her paintings. But what a contentious, abrading life she lived. Born to wealth but scant affection in Chicago, Mitchell was fiercely competitive, excelling at art and as a champion ice skater and becoming a debutante who joined the Communist Party. Hard-drinking Mitchells moxie, recklessness, and smoky, tough-cookie glamour enabled her to hold her own with de Kooning, Pollock, and the boys in New Yorks macho art world. Albers, also the biographer of photographer Tina Modotti, is electrifying in her metaphor-rich descriptions and forthright analysis, tracking Mitchells volcanic artistic fecundity in sync with her psychological struggles and sexual adventuring that included tempestuous relationships with legendary publisher Barney Rosset, Samuel Beckett, and French artist Jean-Paul Riopelle. Albers emulates Mitchells painterly mission to conjoin accuracy and intensity in this transfixing and justly revealing portrait.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)