After iconic Abstract Expressionist Joan Mitchell moved from New York to Paris in the late ‘50s, she began flinging, pouring and brushing paint onto her canvases, centering masses of pigment in compositions alive with movement. David Zwirner Gallery’s current show of Mitchell’s paintings from 1960-1965 zeros in on this period of stylistic innovation while celebrating the centenary of her birth with a selection of work gathered from private collections, the Joan Mitchell Foundation and museums including the Met. In the early 1960s, Mitchell aimed to paint not the particulars of a landscape or space but the feeling of it. Here, the rocky coast and trees of southern France, seen from the sailboat on which she lived for several weeks each summer, inspired her energetic forms and lush palette. (On view through Dec 13th).
