1 “Quis hic locus”: T. S. Eliot, “Marina,” in T. S. Eliot, Collected Poems, 1909–1962 (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1963), 105–6.
2 “graft a conscience”: Brad Gooch, City Poet: The Life and Times of Frank O’Hara (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1993), 429.
3 reportedly rounding out: Ed Clark, interview with author, 21 June 2002.
4 “every pea and radish”; “My life is”: Mitchell to Goldberg, postmarked 8 July 1965, Michael Goldberg Papers, Archives of American Art/Smithsonian Institution.
5 “I can’t go”: Mitchell to Goldberg, postmarked 27 July 1965, ibid.
6 “a magical, unviolated”: Dorothy Carrington, This Corsica: A Complete Guide (London: Hammond, Hammond and Company, 1962), 188.
7 “[coming] out”: Mitchell to Ward, n.d., Stable Gallery Records, Joan Mitchell, Archives of American Art/Smithsonian Institution.
8 “I’m trying”: Mitchell, quoted in John Ashbery, “An Expressionist in Paris,” ArtNews 64:2 (April 1965): 63.
9 “the difference between”: Ibid.
10 she strenuously objected: Yves Michaud, “Entretiens,” in Musée des Beaux-Arts de Nantes/Galerie Nationale du Jeu de Paume, Joan Mitchell (Paris: Éditions du Jeu de Paume, 1994), 31.
11 “It’s a yellow”: Mitchell, quoted in Judith E. Bernstock, Joan Mitchell (New York: Hudson Hills Press in association with Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, 1988), 89. She was speaking of her 1969 Sunflowers.
12 agreed with Bill: Mark Stevens and Annalyn Swan, de Kooning: An American Master (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2004), 232.
13 “violent contrasts”: Stuart Preston, “Art and Industry: A New Synthesis,” New York Times, 25 April 1965, X23.
14 “covered with goose-flesh”: John Button in a letter to Joan Mitchell, 21 April 1965. Collection of the Joan Mitchell Foundation.
15 “A bird”: Jean Fournier, interview with author, 27 March 2003.
16 “Well—about me”: Mitchell to Goldberg, 5 September 1965, Michael Goldberg Papers.
17 “tough-skinned”: Zuka Mitelberg, interview with author, 5 January 2002.
18 “Angel child”: Mitchell to Goldberg, 15 September 1965, Michael Goldberg Papers.
19 At Calvi: Rufus Zogbaum, interview with author, 10 January 2003.
20 But their sex life: Hollis Jeffcoat, interview with author, 15 January 2002.
21 “absolutely resentful”: Marc Berlet, telephone interview with author, 5 August 2006.
22 “compensating for”: Teru Osato Lundsten, telephone interview with author, 27 November 2005.
23 Two years later: Olivier Bernier in a letter to Joan Mitchell, 26 January 1967, Martha Jackson Gallery Archives, UB Anderson Gallery, University at Buffalo, Buffalo, New York.
24 “I’m trying”: Mitchell to Goldberg, n.d., Michael Goldberg Papers.
25 “at least sixty”: Gooch, 10.
26 Alone in the bathroom: Eleanor Wright, interview with author, 13 April 2001.
27 “just right”: John Frederick Nims to Joan Mitchell and Sarah Mitchell Perry, n.d. Collection of the Joan Mitchell Foundation.
28 “dear darling Nellie”: Joan Mitchell to Sarah Mitchell Perry, n.d.
29 “Suddenly”: Rainer Maria Rilke, “Before Summer Rain,” in Stephen Mitchell, ed. and trans., The Selected Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke (New York: Random House, 1982), 35.
30 Infuriated: Joan eventually settled for the return of the five paintings, plus a 1954 Franz Kline then valued at $12,000, in lieu of monies owed. See Eleanor Ward’s 14 October 1967 letter to Joan Mitchell. Stable Gallery Records, Joan Mitchell File, Archives of American Art/Smithsonian Institution.
31 “no more dark centers”: Joan Mitchell in a letter to Olivier Bernier, 29 January 1967, Martha Jackson Gallery Archives.
32 one balmy blue: Paul Waldo Schwartz, “Calder and Miró, Now Past 70, Feted in France,” New York Times, 23 July 1968.
33 “What a sweet”: Joan Mitchell in a letter to Elisabeth Kley, 29 December 1983.
34 On another occasion: John Bennett, interview with author, 28 June 2002.
35 “under his shadow”: Elisabeth Kley, telephone interview with author, 7 April 2006.
36 “a humanist initiatory”; “lay monk”: Pierre Wat, “Jean Fournier ou la discrétion à l’oeuvre,” Beaux-Arts (July-August 1994): 42.
37 “my truth”: Jean Fournier, interview with author, 27 March 2003.
38 “You are”: Joan Mitchell, quoted by Betsy Jolas, interview with author, 26 March 2003.
39 “cheer up”: Mitchell, interviewed by Linda Nochlin, 16 April 1986. Transcript, Archives of American Art/Smithsonian Institution.
40 Joan bargained: Yseult Riopelle, telephone interview with author, 17 November 2006.
41 “absolutely awful”: Joan Mitchell in a letter to Evans Herman, n.d. Collection of Frances Herman.
42 She kept: Ed Clark, interview with author, 21 June 2002.
43 “immense overturned”: Mitchell, quoted in Eleanor Munro, Originals: American Women Artists (New York: Da Capo, 2000), 237.
44 “the horrors”: Evans Herman, interview with author, 27 March 2004.
45 “Out of your poem”: Mitchell to Herman, n.d.
46 “Why do you”: Pierre Schneider, “Paris: Literature’s Return to Nature,” New York Times, 10 May 1971.
47 “If I see”: Mitchell, quoted in Bernstock, 85.
48 She looked: Salut Sally, painted that same year, is among the works that reveal the influence of Sam Francis.
49 “lights and whites”: Joan Mitchell in a note to Elisabeth Kley, n.d.
50 “the desire to”: Vincent van Gogh in a letter to Wilhelmina J. van Gogh in Complete Letters of Vincent Van Gogh (Greenwich, CT: New York Graphic Society, 1958), 468.
51 “my View of Delft”: Joan Mitchell, quoted in Ora Lerman, “The Elusive Subject: Joan Mitchell’s Reflections on van Gogh,” Arts 65:1 (September 1990): 45.
52 In his Bristol: Hélène de Billy, Riopelle (Montreal: Art Global, 1996), 205.
53 “You’re George”; “very lively”: John Bennett, interview with author, 28 June 2002.
54 “Abandonment is”: Mitchell, interviewed by Yves Michaud, “Conversation with Joan Mitchell,” in Xavier Fourcade Gallery, Joan Mitchell: New Paintings (New York: Xavier Fourcade Gallery, 1986), unpaginated.
55 “It really looks”; “standing in front”: Joan Mitchell in a letter to Sarah Mitchell Perry, 15 May 1969. Collection of Sally Perry.
56 But their Serica era: One weekend in July 1969 found Joan uncharacteristically entertaining without him at sea. Her guests included sculptor Lynda Benglis, whom she had met through Mike Goldberg. That Sunday the radio brought news of the death of artist Barnett Newman, a non-objective New York School painter and sculptor who had sought to embody pure spirituality in his work. A friend of Newman’s, Benglis was deeply upset. In contrast, Joan (who had once instructed Newman, two decades her senior, to stop using acrylics) bluntly asserted that she felt nothing about Newman’s death and even, according to Benglis, more or less cursed the dead painter. Lynda Benglis, telephone interview with author, 7 November 2006.
57 “never saw”: Jacqueline Hyde, interview with author, 19 January 2002.
58 “beyond what”: Roseline Granet, interview with author, 28 March 2003.
59 “Rip’s on his”: Joan Mitchell to Sally Perry, n.d. [April 1971]. Collection of Sally Perry.
60 “this dumb little car”: Howard Kanovitz, interview with author, 18 July 2002.
61 Tempers flared anew: Madeleine Arbour (interviewer) and Jeannette Tardif (director), Riopelle: Ficelles et Autres Jeux (Montreal: Radio-Canada, 1972). Video.
62 “the most distraught”: Ellen Lanyon, interview with author, 27 July 2001.
63 Joan told: Elga Heinzen, personal communication to author, 8 May 2002.
64 “I will use”: Joan Mitchell, interviewed in Lynn Blumenthal (interviewer) and Kate Horsfield (cameraperson), Joan Mitchell: An Interview (Chicago: Video Data Bank [School of the Art Institute of Chicago], 1974). Video.
65 Joan fawned: Yseult Riopelle, telephone interview with author, 17 November 2006.
66 “death warmed over”: Mitchell, interviewed by Nochlin, 16 April 1986. Transcript, Archives of American Art/Smithsonian Institution.
67 “direct communication”: T. S. Eliot, “Ben Jonson,” in Selected Essays (London: Faber and Faber, 1963), quoted in Terry Eagleton, Literary Theory (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996), 35.
68 “grace dissolved”; “less strong and stronger”: Eliot, Collected Poems, 105.
69 “one’s feelings”: Ashbery, “An Expressionist in Paris,” ArtNews 64:2 (April 1965): 64.
70 Something Joan had seen: Lise Weil, telephone interview with author, 4 December 2005.
71 “part of an expressive”: Marcia Tucker, Joan Mitchell (New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, 1974), 14.
72 “is the Seine”: Joan Mitchell quoted in Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Joan Mitchell: Choix de Peintures, 1970–1982 (Paris: ARC, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, 1982), unpaginated.
73 “lost some”: Mitchell, quoted in Lerman, “The Elusive Subject,” Arts 65:1 (September 1990): 43.
74 “Do I have to”: Joan Mitchell, quoted by James Harithas, telephone interview with author, 17 October 2006.
75 “pushing her mastery”; “as one of the best”: Peter Schjeldahl, “Joan Mitchell: To Obscurity and Back,” New York Times, 30 April 1972.
76 “this Whitney bit”; “practically in ‘divorce’ ”: Joan Mitchell in a letter to David Anderson, 2 June 1972. Martha Jackson Gallery Archives.
77 “sick—balls”; “Lelong has offered”: Mitchell to Anderson, 24 July 1972, Martha Jackson Gallery Archives.
78 “wondering”: Christian Larson in a letter to Joan Mitchell, 12 February 1973. Collection of the Joan Mitchell Foundation.
79 “painting music”: Gisèle Barreau, interview with author, 29 March 2003.
80 “Music, poems”: Mitchell, quoted in Tucker, 7.
81 In order to: Michaële-Andréa Schatt, interview with author, 19 January 2002.
82 “a locomotive”: John Hailey, telephone interview with author, 23 April 2006.
83 “For my identity”: Mitchell, interviewed by Michaud, Joan Mitchell: New Paintings.
84 “You know”: Joan Mitchell, quoted by Rufus Zogbaum, interview with author, 10 January 2003.
85 One afternoon: Marcia Tucker, A Short Life of Trouble: Forty Years in the New York Art World (Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press, 2008), 105–07.
86 “I’ve had enough”: Tucker, 106.
87 “ ‘Miss Curator Whitney’ ”: Joan Mitchell to Sarah Mitchell Perry, 18 December 1973. Collection of the Joan Mitchell Foundation.
1 “And when I thought”: James Schuyler, “Daylight,” in Collected Poems (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1993), 183.
2 She exhibited: The Whitney exhibition also included twelve paintings done between 1969 and 1972 as a “background” to the 1972 to 1974 work.
3 “comes from”: Mitchell, quoted in Marcia Tucker, Joan Mitchell (New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, 1974), 8.
4 “This supports”: Carter Ratcliff, “Joan Mitchell’s Envisonments,” Art in America 62:4 (July–August 1974): 34.
5 “a Biblical epic”: John Frederick Nims in a letter to Joan Mitchell, 11 May 1974. In another Chicago connection, Joan had run into Rue Shaw, the president of the Arts Club of Chicago and an old friend of the Mitchell family, at Pierre Matisse’s 1973 St. Patrick’s Day party. Afterward, Shaw had conceived of the idea of traveling a portion of the Whitney show to the Arts Club. Joan Mitchell: Recent Paintings opened in Chicago on 23 September 1974. Shaw had coaxed Joan into attending the opening, but, at the eleventh hour, the artist backed out, pleading sciatica and lumbago but later admitting her inability to face the onslaught of Chicago memories. Newberry Library, Arts Club file, Joan Mitchell, Sept. 23–Nov. 9, 1974 (23.9.74 [OMS][C]).
6 “Dropped gradually”: Max Kozloff, “Painters Reply,” Artforum 14:1 (September 1975): 37.
7 “career crap”: Mitchell, interviewed in Lynn Blumenthal (interviewer) and Kate Horsfield (cameraperson), Joan Mitchell: An Interview (Chicago: Video Data Bank [School of the Art Institute of Chicago], 1974). Video.
8 Art dealer: Klaus Kertess, “Her Passion Was Abstract but No Less Combustible,” New York Times, 16 June 2002.
9 “truly outstanding”; “with their huge paintings”: Barbara Rose, “First-Rate Art by the Second Sex,” New York, 8 April 1974, 80.
10 Along with Grace: Laurie Lisle, Louise Nevelson: A Passionate Life (New York: Summit Books, 1990), 164.
11 She also showed up: Rose Slivka, interview with author, 19 June 2002.
12 “the burden”: Cindy Nemser, “An Afternoon with Joan Mitchell,” Feminist Art Journal 3:1 (spring 1974): 6.
13 “But it really”: John Frederick Nims in a letter to Joan Mitchell, 11 May 1974. Collection of the Joan Mitchell Foundation.
14 In any case: Mark Stevens and Annalyn Swan, de Kooning: An American Master (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2004), 292.
15 “You want”: Joan Mitchell, quoted by Jill Weinberg Adams, interview with author, 26 June 2002.
16 A few days: David Anderson, telephone interview with author, 3 July 2005.
17 “She’s a total”: Mitchell, quoted in Judith E. Bernstock, Joan Mitchell (New York: Hudson Hills Press in association with Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, 1988), 134.
18 “no identity”: Mitchell, interviewed in Blumenthal and Horsfield.
19 “an identity”: Harry Gaugh, “Dark Victories,” ArtNews 87:6 (summer 1988): 157.
20 “I’m very”: Mitchell, quoted in Eleanor Munro, Originals: American Women Artists (New York: Da Capo, 2000), 235.
21 A case in point: Author’s telephone conversation with Deirdre Bair, 7 June 2006.
22 When her old: Jon Schueler, The Sound of Sleat: A Painter’s Life (New York: Picador, 1999), 249.
23 Another time: Eleanor Wright and Georgia Funsten, interview with author, 13 April 2001.
24 “horrible”: Lise Weil, telephone interview with author, 4 December 2005.
25 “silver-spoon people”: Joan Mitchell, quoted by Ken Tyler, interview with author, 7 January 2003.
26 One evening: Lydia Davis, telephone interview with author, 7 July 2008.
27 “She talked”: Lydia Davis, personal communication to author, July 2008.
28 “Who do you think”: Joan Mitchell, quoted in Siri Hustvedt, Mysteries of the Rectangle: Essays on Painting (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2005), 136.
29 “serious … and ‘centered’ ”: Lydia Davis, personal communication to author, July 2008.
30 “My stay”: Paul Auster in a letter to Lydia Davis, 28 July 1972, personal communication to author; Paul Auster, interview with author, 31 July 2008.
31 the beautiful, pale: Lise Weil, telephone interview with author, 4 December 2005.
32 “to Joan”: Christian Larson in a letter to Joan Mitchell, 24 April 1973.
33 Joan would tuck: Robert Harms, interview with author, 18 July 2002. My thanks to Honor Moore for corresponding with me about J. J. Mitchell.
34 “Here we are”: J. J. Mitchell to “Harry,” n.d. [4 a.m., Pentecost]. Collection of the Joan Mitchell Foundation.
35 Since 1970: Champlain Charest and Réjeanne Charest, interviews with author, 20 July 2001.
36 “With great friendship”: The Joan Mitchell Foundation has several such postcards, dating between 1971 and 1977, in its collection.
37 “for enormous protection”: Mitchell, quoted in Bernstock, 68.
38 They finished: Mitchell to Goldberg, 10 February 1975. Collection of the Joan Mitchell Foundation.
39 “pasteled up”: Mitchell, interviewed by Linda Nochlin, 16 April 1986. Transcript, Archives of American Art/Smithsonian Institution.
40 Her effort notwithstanding: Joe LeSueur in a letter to Joan Mitchell, 4 December 1975. Collection of the Joan Mitchell Foundation.
41 Whenever a friend: Pierre Schneider, telephone interview with author, 24 September 2006.
42 “When they bit”: Philippe Dagen, “La Fureur de Joan Mitchell,” Le Monde, 2–3 August 1992.
43 “No! No!”: Joan Mitchell, quoted by Bill Scott, interview with author, 31 March 2004.
44 “destroyed everything”: Jean-Paul Riopelle, quoted by Roseline Granet, interview with author, 28 March 2003.
45 “I thought”: Jean-Paul Riopelle, quoted by John Bennett, interview with author, 28 June 2002.
46 “looked like huge”: Schueler, 249–50.
47 Sometimes she would draw: Paul Auster, interview with author, 31 July 2008.
48 “up and down things”: Mitchell, quoted in Bernstock, 143.
49 That October: Joan Mitchell in a letter to Xavier Fourcade, 18 October 1977. Fourcade Gallery Archives.
50 “too Helen Frankenthaler!”: Joan Mitchell, quoted by Jill Weinberg Adams, interview with author, 26 June 2002.
51 “truly doing wonders”: Phyllis Hailey in a letter to Anne and John Hailey, n.d. [c. June 1976] in The Parthenon, Phyllis Hailey and Joan Mitchell: The Story of Two Artists in France, 7.
52 “Well if it means”: Joan Mitchell in a note to Phyllis Hailey, n.d., in ibid., 7.
53 “Oh, come on”; “Hollis, what do”: Joan Mitchell, quoted by Hollis Jeffcoat, interview with author, 15 January 2002.
54 “What should”: Ibid.
55 Ah, another Mitchell!: Carl Plansky, interview with author, 16 January 2001. Hollis Jeffcoat described Joan’s feelings in a similar way, as did Mitchell herself in a letter to artist Joyce Pensato.
56 “[thrown] Phyllis over”; “There was”: Hollis Jeffcoat, interview with author, 15 January 2002.
57 “Joanie, You were”: Hollis Jeffcoat in a letter to Joan Mitchell, 7 October 1977. Collection of the Joan Mitchell Foundation.
58 Joan spent: Joan Mitchell in a letter to Xavier Fourcade, 18 October 1977. Fourcade Gallery Archives.
59 “dashed dreams”: Teru Osato Lundsten, telephone interview with author, 27 November 2005.
60 “Having nearly”: Tim Osato in a letter to Joan Mitchell, 25 December 1977. Collection of the Joan Mitchell Foundation.
61 “J.P. has been”: Joan Mitchell in a letter to Joe LeSueur, 10 March 1978. Collection of Robert Harms.
62 “didn’t come close”: Hollis Jeffcoat, interview with author, 15 January 2002.
63 “Do hope”: Joan Mitchell in a letter to Anne Hailey, 18 July 1978. Collection of Anne Hailey.
64 “and it was”: Hollis Jeffcoat, interview with author, 15 January 2002.
65 “concentrating on areas”: Ibid.
66 “I will never”: Sam Francis, quoted by Hollis Jeffcoat, interview with author, 15 January 2002.
67 “I’ve tried”: Hollis Jeffcoat, interview with author, 15 January 2002.
68 “Everyone seems”: Joan Mitchell in a letter to Sally Perry, 1 September 1978. Collection of Sally Perry.
69 “All I can say”: Joe LeSueur in a letter to Joan Mitchell, 14 December 1978. Collection of the Joan Mitchell Foundation.
70 “Hollis and I”: Joan Mitchell in a letter to Joyce Pensato, n.d. [spring 1979].
71 “They’ve run away”: Joan Mitchell, quoted by Michael Goldberg, interview with author, 20 June 2002.
72 He was present: So Joan told Elisabeth Kley and Gisèle Barreau, respectively.
73 “I caught”: Joan Mitchell, quoted by Bill Berkson, interview with author, 10 July 2006.
74 “To realize”; “Oh God”: Barney Rosset in a letter to Joan Mitchell, 5 September 1979. Rosset’s first sentence quotes Mitchell. Collection of the Joan Mitchell Foundation.
1 “Magical childhood land”: Gisèle Barreau, “La Grande Vallée,” 2001.
2 “very creepy”: Mitchell, interview by Linda Nochlin, 16 April 1986. Transcript, Archives of American Art/Smithsonian Institution.
3 “like hitting”: Mitchell to Von Blon, 12 December 1979.
4 “I sleep”: Gisèle Barreau in a note to Joan Mitchell, n.d. Collection of the Joan Mitchell Foundation.
5 “Young lady”; “You’re having”; “You, what’s the matter”; “Aw, you’re such”: Joan Mitchell, quoted by Carl Plansky, interview with author, 16 January 2001.
6 “That twig!”: Ibid.
7 “It was”: Carl Plansky, interview with author, 16 January 2001.
8 atop layers of newspaper: Joyce Pensato, interview with author, 14 July 2002.
9 Unlike most artists: Ken Tyler, interview with author, 7 January 2003.
10 “ ‘pretty’ accidents”: Joan Mitchell in a letter to Joe LeSueur, n.d. [November 1979]. Collection of the Joan Mitchell Foundation.
11 Lest anyone make assumptions: Judith E. Bernstock, Joan Mitchell (New York: Hudson Hills Press in association with Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, 1988), 172.
12 Continuing to use: A few days after learning of his longtime companion’s death in October 1992, Jean-Paul Riopelle would undertake, in her honor, the monumental L’Hommage à Rosa Luxemburg, today on permanent display at the Musée du Québec in Quebec City, Canada. A narrative sequence consisting of thirty canvases totaling approximately 131 feet wide, L’Hommage à Rosa Luxemburg is organized as a triptych/environment. Riopelle’s title derives, in part, from the fact that German communist Rosa Luxemburg wrote coded letters from her prison cell. The painting’s symbology includes a heart pierced by an arrow, a broken watch, a sun caught in a net, a horseshoe, a harness, and a bit.
13 “really hacking”: Mitchell to Von Blon, n.d. Collection of Joanne Von Blon.
14 “You have”: Reed Bertolette in a letter to Joan Mitchell, 17 April n.d. Collection of the Joan Mitchell Foundation.
15 “You were”: Joan Mitchell in a note to Joyce Pensato, n.d. Collection of Joyce Pensato.
16 “ ‘Ludwigs’ ”: Ibid.
17 “Joan is making”: Mitchell to Plansky and Pensato, n.d. Collection of Joyce Pensato.
18 “miracle on roller skates”: Denise Browne Hare in a letter to Joan Mitchell, 26 May 1984. Collection of the Joan Mitchell Foundation.
19 On this occasion: Bill Berkson, interview with author, 10 July 2006. Art dealer Robert Miller told me about watching Joan stumble upon a particularly fine late de Kooning at the Corcoran Gallery in 1988. She nearly genuflected.
20 “Here’s what”: Joan Mitchell, quoted by Michaële-Andréa Schatt, interview with author, 19 January 2002.
21 “Shit!”: Michaële-Andréa Schatt, interview with author, 19 January 2002.
22 “Michaële, shall we”: Joan Mitchell, quoted by Michaële-Andréa Schatt, interview with author, 19 January 2002.
23 “that fixed determination”: Joan Mitchell, quoted by Barney Rosset, Rosset to Mitchell, 5 September 1979. Collection of the Joan Mitchell Foundation.
24 “When she”: Michaële-Andréa Schatt, interview with author, 19 January 2002.
25 During its installation: Paul Richard, telephone interview with author, 16 August 2002.
26 “I’m not sure”: Carla Hall, “Abstract Audacity … And a Party for the Folks Who Put It Together,” Washington Post, 19 February 1981.
27 “I understand”: Katy Crowe, interview with author, 27 October 2001.
28 “I wouldn’t know”: Mitchell to Von Blon, n.d. Collection of Joanne Von Blon.
29 “drink the landscape”: Joan Mitchell to Sarah Mitchell Perry, 14 May 1982. Collection of Sally Perry.
30 “a hoot”; “like a game”: Ken Tyler, interview with author, 7 January 2003.
31 “Ken, this might be”; “as close as”; “God damn it”: Ibid.
32 “Ken, I want”: Joan Mitchell, quoted in Barbara Rose, “The Landscape of Light: Joan Mitchell,” Vogue (June 1981): 207.
33 “If she saw”: Ken Tyler, interview with author, 7 January 2003.
34 “Your paintings”: Barreau to Mitchell, n.d. Collection of the Joan Mitchell Foundation.
35 “verbal percussion”: Gisèle Barreau in “Gisèle Barreau: Notes biographiques et catalogue d’oeuvres,” Christine Paquelet Édition Arts, Paris.
36 “I realize”: Barreau to Mitchell, n.d. Collection of the Joan Mitchell Foundation.
37 “a rapturous”: Joe LeSueur, Digressions on Some Poems by Frank O’Hara (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003), 137–38.
38 “You broke”: Mitchell to Barreau, n.d. Collection of the Joan Mitchell Foundation.
39 “the awareness that”: John Fried in a letter to Joan Mitchell, 16 December 1981. Collection of the Joan Mitchell Foundation.
40 “enchanted day”: Ibid.
41 “because it was”: Jaqueline Fried, interview with author, 9 January 2003.
42 “indescribable rudeness”: Sarah Mitchell Perry to Joan Mitchell, 9 November 1979. Collection of Sally Perry.
43 “Sal—I’m saying”: Joan Mitchell to Sarah Mitchell Perry, n.d. Collection of Sally Perry.
44 “the opposite of”: Joan Mitchell, quoted in ARC, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Joan Mitchell: Choix de Peintures, 1970–1982 (Paris: ARC, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, 1982), unpaginated.
45 “We both look”: Joan Mitchell, quoted by Georgia Funsten and Eleanor Wright, interview with author, 13 April 2001.
46 “really hooked”: Elisabeth Kley, telephone interview with author, 7 April 2006.
47 “I called”: Joan Mitchell in a note to Elisabeth Kley, n.d. Collection of Elisabeth Kley.
48 “I did call”: Ibid.
49 “I’m still listening”: Ibid.
50 “This is obviously”: Michael Gibson, “Joan Mitchell’s Glowing Paintings,” International Herald Tribune, 24–25 July 1982.
51 “meaner and meaner”: Sally Perry, interview with author, 14 April 2001.
52 “must have been”: Carl Plansky, interview with author, 16 January 2001.
53 “It’s so nice”: Mitchell to Kley, n.d. A letter from Joe LeSueur to Joan dated 31 December 1983 in the collection of the Joan Mitchell Foundation confirms that Joan was indeed “on the wagon.”
54 “very true”: Mitchell, interviewed by Linda Nochlin, 16 April 1986. Transcript, Archives of American Art/Smithsonian Institution.
55 her rereading of Proust: Jean Fournier, interview with author, 27 March 2003. Fournier told me that Joan made an explicit connection between Proust and La Grande Vallée. In contrast, Barreau said that Joan made such a connection in terms of her work in general but not specifically La Grande Vallée.
56 “the true paradises”: Marcel Proust, Time Regained, In Search of Lost Time, trans. C. K. Scott-Moncrieff and Terence Kilmartin, rev. by D. J. Enright (New York: Modern Library, 1992), 261.
57 “all meaningless”: Mitchell to Kley, 29 December 1983. Collection of Elisabeth Kley.
58 “an emblematic painting”: Jean Fournier, interview with author, 27 March 2003.
59 “in and out”: Klaus Kertess, Joan Mitchell (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1997), 37. In painting La Grande Vallée, Mitchell used a small reducing mirror to defamiliarize her work-in-progress (by reflecting it backward) and help her see it wholly and as if from a greater distance.
60 “painting is like”: Gisèle Barreau interviewed by Yvette Y. Lee, in Yvette Y. Lee, “Beyond Life and Death: Joan Mitchell’s Grande Vallée Suite,” in Jane Livingston, The Paintings of Joan Mitchell (New York, Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: Whitney Museum of American Art in association with University of California Press, 2002), 63. Sarah Mitchell Perry’s entrance into and exit from this world both occasioned major artistic achievements, her mother’s “Songs for Sally” in the first case and her sister’s La Grande Vallée in the second.
61 “People’s Magazine”: Joan Mitchell to Sarah Mitchell Perry, 25 April 1982. Collection of Sally Perry.
62 “Look, when they come”: Joan Mitchell, quoted by Carl Plansky, interview with author, 16 January 2001.
63 “Three years ago”: Joyce Campbell, “In the Land of Monet, American Painter Joan Mitchell More Than Pulls Her Weight,” People Weekly, 6 December 1982, 84.
64 “The Twenty-Four-Year”: Mitchell, interviewed in Marion Cajori, director, Joan Mitchell: Portrait of an Abstract Painter (New York: Art Kaleidoscope Foundation and Christian Blackwood Productions, 1992). Film.
65 “twice with her”: Joan Mitchell in a letter to Elisabeth Kley, n.d. Collection of Elisabeth Kley.
66 “That garbage can:” Mitchell to Von Blon, n.d. Collection of Joanne Von Blon.
67 “Will you come”: Joan Mitchell, quoted by Hollis Jeffcoat, interview with author, 15 January 2002.
68 “My painting outfit!”: Joan Mitchell, quoted by Huguette Vachon, interview with author, 19 July 2001.
69 “[weaves] all the colors”: Ora Lerman, “The Elusive Subject: Joan Mitchell’s Reflections on van Gogh,” Arts 65:1 (September 1990): 45.
70 “absorption of Impressionism”: John Yau, “Reviews: New York,” Artforum 23:9 (May 1985): 105.
71 “The whole linkage”: Bernstock, 76.
72 “Monette”: Sally Apfelbaum, interview with author, 25 July 2001.
73 Once, after a visit: Bill Scott, interview with author, 31 March 2004.
74 “the spirit”: Nemser, 24.
75 “helps little”: Pierre Schneider, “Art News from Paris: Left Bank,” ArtNews 59:4 (summer 1960): 50.
76 in 1974: Tucker, Joan Mitchell (New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, 1974), 16. Rosenberg responded in “The Art World: Artist Against Background,” New Yorker, 29 April 1974, 71–72, 74, 76, 78.
77 “To get right”: Yves Michaud, “Couleur,” in Joan Mitchell: La Grande Vallée (Paris: Galerie Jean Fournier, 1984), 8–9.
78 “as time passes”: Robert Storr, “Joan Mitchell: Pastorale Furieuse,” in Musée des Beaux-Arts de Nantes/Galerie Nationale du Jeu de Paume, Joan Mitchell (Paris: Éditions du Jeu de Paume, 1994), 18.
79 “You’re supposed”: Mitchell, interviewed in Cajori.
80 “like a place”: Robert Miller, telephone interview with author, 24 August 2003.
81 “watering can”: Hugo von Hofmannsthal, The Lord Chandos Letter, trans. Russell Stockman (Marlboro, VT: Marlboro Press, 1986), 23.
82 “That’s it”: Mitchell, interviewed by Nochlin, 16 April 1986. Transcript, Archives of American Art/Smithsonian Institution.
83 “that house”: Jacqueline Hyde, interview with author, 19 January 2002. Elga Heinzen told me the same thing.
84 “That’s what”: Joyce Pensato, interview with author, 14 July 2002.
85 “hold a lemon”: Bill Scott, “In the Eye of the Tiger,” Art in America 83:3 (March 1995): 75–76.
86 “Let’s organize”: Mitchell to Kley and others [“Now kids”], n.d. Collection of Elisabeth Kley.
87 “brought out”: Bill Scott, interview with author, 31 March 2004.
88 “out for dissection”; “It would look”: Christopher Campbell, telephone interview with author, 10 February 2007.
89 “looked at me”: Robert Harms, interview with author, 18 July 2002.
1 “a few days”: James Schuyler, Selected Poems (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1988), 237.
2 “God the Father”: Jeanne Le Bozec, interview with author, 25 March 2003.
3 “Write down”: Barreau to Mitchell, n.d. Collection of the Joan Mitchell Foundation.
4 “never missed”: Christiane Rousseaux, interview with author, 12 January 2002.
5 “tragic and beautiful”: Joan Mitchell in a letter to Joyce Pensato, n.d. Collection of Joyce Pensato.
6 “used to death”: Carl Plansky, interview with author, 16 January 2001.
7 “active death”: Paul Richard, “Joan Mitchell’s Bleak Horizons,” Washington Post, 27 February 1988. Four years earlier, Joan had painted the beautiful and chilling Cobalt.
8 “It’s death”: Mitchell, quoted in Judith E. Bernstock, Joan Mitchell (New York: Hudson Hills Press in association with Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, 1988), 39.
9 “the way it mounts”: Mitchell to Von Blon, postmarked 2 January 1987. Collection of Joanne Von Blon.
10 “death warmed over”: Mitchell, interviewed by Linda Nochlin, 16 April 1986. Transcript, Archives of American Art/Smithsonian Institution.
11 “a clip”: Joseph Strick in a letter to Joan Mitchell, 16 January 1985. Collection of the Joan Mitchell Foundation.
12 “paint more directly”: Mitchell, quoted by Rufus Zogbaum, interview with author, 10 January 2003.
13 “Keep cracking!”: Joan Mitchell in a letter to Robert Harms, n.d. [January 1988]. Collection of Robert Harms.
14 “When I was sick”: Mitchell, interviewed by Yves Michaud, “Conversation with Joan Mitchell,” in Xavier Fourcade Gallery, Joan Mitchell: New Paintings (New York: Xavier Fourcade Gallery, 1986), unpaginated.
15 “and the trees”: Ibid.
16 By the mid-1980s: Jill Weinberg Adams, interview with author, 9 July 2002; Anne-Elisabeth Moutet, “An American in Paris,” Elle [February 1988]: 74.
17 “Only one person”: Mitchell, quoted in Bernstock, 195.
18 “just completely!”: Jill Weinberg Adams, interview with author, 9 July 2002.
19 “the New York fags”: Joan Mitchell, quoted by Hal Fondren in a letter to Joan Mitchell, 28 February 1987. Collection of the Joan Mitchell Foundation.
20 using an easel: Mitchell to Von Blon, postmarked 2 January 1987. Collection of Joanne Von Blon.
21 Sometimes the dogs: Paul Auster, interview with artist, 31 July 2008.
22 “All all”: Mitchell to Von Blon, postmarked 2 January 1987. Collection of Joanne Von Blon.
23 “We had”: Jill Weinberg Adams, interview with author, 26 June 2002.
24 “that crazy”: Mitchell to Von Blon, postmarked 2 January 1987. Collection of Joanne Von Blon.
25 Joan had first: Andreas Freund, “Paris Unveils a Grand Matisse Exhibition,” New York Times, 21 April 1970.
26 “take the whole”: Margaret Staats and Lucas Matthiessen, “The Genetics of Art, Part II,” Quest 77 (July–August 1977): 42.
27 “made still”: Mitchell, interviewed by Michaud, Joan Mitchell: New Paintings.
28 “It is a fact”: Yves Michaud, “Accords,” in Galerie Jean Fournier, Joan Mitchell: Peintures 1986 & 1987: River, Lille, Chord (Paris: Galerie Jean Fournier, 1987), 68.
29 That winter: Ora Lerman, “The Elusive Subject: Joan Mitchell’s Reflections on van Gogh,” Arts 65:1 (September 1990): 44.
30 “Color sends me”: Mitchell to Goldberg, n.d., Michael Goldberg Papers, Archives of American Art/Smithsonian Institution.
31 meaning suicide: Robert Harms, interview with artist, 18 July 2002.
32 “the opposite of”: ARC, Joan Mitchell: Choix de Peintures, unpaginated.
33 “stayed with”: Staats and Matthiessen, 42.
34 “fanaticism”: Mitchell to Goldberg, 13 August 1954, Michael Goldberg Papers.
35 “a way to make”: Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh in Complete Letters of Vincent Van Gogh (Greenwich, CT: New York Graphic Society, 1958), 26.
36 Others related: Lerman, 44; Robert Harms, interview with author, 18 July 2002.
37 “the love of”: Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh in Complete Letters, 26.
38 Both artists favored: In The Hidden Order of Art: A Study in the Psychology of Artistic Imagination (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press), 160, one of Joan’s bibles, psychoanalytic and art theorist Anton Ehrenzweig writes that “Van Gogh did not rely on the open clash between complementary or near-complementary colours, like a blue-violet sky against warm yellow fields. He was more concerned to seal them off from each other and so heighten the dramatic tension between them.”
Ehrenzweig also argues that the truly creative thinker can engage with the seeming chaos of the unconscious from which a complex order eventually emerges, characterizes artistic structure as “essentially ‘polyphonic,’ ” and coins the term “poemagogic [from ‘hypnagogic’] images” to mean the “tragic images of creativity” including those at the “ ‘oceanic’ level where we feel our individual existence lost in mystic union with the universe.” His appeal to Joan is evident.
39 “rugged individualism”: Robert Miller, telephone interview with author, 24 August 2003.
40 Lennon too: The gallery continues as Lennon, Weinberg.
41 “the fags and females”: Joan Mitchell, quoted by Jill Weinberg Adams, interview with author, 9 July 2002.
42 “art-historicized live”: Yves Michaud in a letter to Joan Mitchell, 11 February 1987. Collection of the Joan Mitchell Foundation.
43 “It’s horrible”: Liz Lufkin, “Triumph for ‘Lady Painter,’ ” San Francisco Chronicle, 26 May 1988.
44 “Joan really challenged”: Jill Weinberg Adams, interview with author, 9 July 2002.
45 Displeased to find: Letter from Rebecca Gregson, Registrar, Corcoran Gallery of Art, to Pierre Matisse, Pierre Matisse Gallery, 7 March 1988. Pierpont Morgan Library. Record Group: Pierre Matisse Gallery. Record Series: Artists. Subseries: Joan Mitchell. Box 24, File 4; Jill Weinberg Adams, interview with author, 9 July 2002.
46 “What the hell”: Carl Plansky, interview with author, 16 January 2001; John Cheim, interview with author, 10 July 2002.
47 “very messed up”: Dorothy Burkhart, “Joan Mitchell—Nature in Abstraction,” San Jose Mercury News, 12 June 1988.
48 For good measure: Manny Silverman, interview with author, 26 October 2001.
49 “lapsed into”: William Wilson, “Abstracting an Abstract Expressionist,” Los Angeles Times, 19 June 1988.
50 That long-ago lover: Richard Bowman, interview with author, 26 August 2001; Kim Bowman, telephone interview with author, 23 July 2003; Marvin Vickers, telephone interview with author, 23 July 2003.
51 “What kind”: Joan Mitchell, quoted by Bill Berkson, interview with author, 10 July 2006.
52 “My! You certainly”: Unknown audience member, quoted by Bill Berkson, interview with author, 10 July 2006.
53 “grown-up painting”: John Russell, “Art: Internationalism at La Défense,” New York Times, 25 April 1986.
54 her question-and-answer session: Joan refused to cash her $200 lecture fee.
55 “most racist city”: A stock phrase of Joan’s. Los Angeles art dealer Manny Silverman, for one, told me of lunching with Joan in 1989 at Le Hangar, a little restaurant near the Galerie Jean Fournier. When Fournier arrived with a collector couple from Chicago, Joan greeted them with the remark, “Did you know that Chicago is the most racist city on the face of the earth?” Within twenty minutes she had made “lunch with the artist” so unappealing that, at Fournier’s suggestion, the trio departed in mid-meal for the gallery.
56 “You think”: Philippe Dagen, “La fureur de Joan Mitchell,” Le Monde, 2–3 August 1992.
57 preceding the graduation: Jill Weinberg Adams, Ninety (1993): 35.
58 “formidable valor”: Raymonde Perthuis, interview with author, 10 January 2002.
59 A visit: Marilyn Stark, interview with author, 21 July 2004.
60 “deaf, as in”; “What happened”: The recipients of these two comments still being alive, I do not divulge their identities.
61 “putting in the dagger”: Sara Holt, interview with author, 6 January 2002.
62 “sweet instinct”: Christopher Campbell, telephone interview with author, 10 February 2007.
63 “like a baby”: Christiane Rousseaux, interview with author, 12 January 2002.
64 “feel like”: John Cheim, Ninety (1993): 45.
65 “Dear Sara Holt”: Note from Joan Mitchell to Sara Holt. Collection of Sara Holt and Jean-Max Albert.
66 her friend: Jeanne Le Bozec, interview with author, 25 March 2003.
67 “a beacon”: Rufus Zogbaum, interview with author, 10 January 2003.
68 “What the fuck”: Joan Mitchell, quoted by Marc Berlet, telephone interview with author, 5 August 2006.
69 “depressed”: Barney Rosset in a telephone conversation with Richard Milazzo. See Milazzo, “Barney and Joan: Barney Rosset’s Photographs of Joan Mitchell and Joan Mitchell’s Letters to Barney Rosset,” Caravaggio on the Beach: Essays on Art in the 1990’s (Tangiers: Éditions d’Afrique du Nord, 2001), 124.
70 “But above and beyond”: Rosset to Mitchell, 2 August 1989. Collection of the Joan Mitchell Foundation.
71 “nuts”: Mitchell to Von Blon, postmarked 17 December 1990. Collection of Joanne Von Blon.
72 “because … he was a man”: Kate Van Houten, interview with author, 18 January 2002.
73 “Well, I am”: Joan Mitchell, quoted by Jean-Max Albert, interview with author, 6 January 2002.
74 “truly sought”: Monique Frydman, interview with author, 16 January 2002.
75 “And you”: Monique Frydman, Ninety (1993): 26.
76 “was very moving”: Mitchell to Jaqueline Fried, postmarked 21 December 1983. Collection of Jaqueline Fried.
77 “spin back”: Mitchell to Von Blon, postmarked 21 December 1983. Collection of Joanne Von Blon.
78 “She kept insisting”: Jane Livingston, The Paintings of Joan Mitchell (New York, Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: Whitney Museum of American Art in association with University of California Press, 2002), 38.
79 “You seem”: Yves Michaud, “Entretiens,” in Musée des Beaux-Arts de Nantes/Galerie Nationale du Jeu de Paume, Joan Mitchell (Paris: Éditions du Jeu de Paume, 1994), 30–31.
80 “a sort of”: Mitchell, interviewed by Michaud, Joan Mitchell: New Paintings. Joan’s words recall Proust’s account, in the final volume of In Search of Lost Time, of his narrator’s realization that the euphoria of involuntary memory arises from its transport of the self outside time, beyond the reach of death, and to the hidden essence of things and of one’s true being. See Marcel Proust, Time Regained, In Search of Lost Time, trans. C. K. Scott-Moncrieff and Terence Kilmartin, rev. by D. J. Enright (New York: Modern Library, 1992), 262–65.
81 “the images of his past”: Kevin T. Dann, Bright Colors Falsely Seen: Synaesthesia and the Search for Transcendental Knowledge (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1998), 159.
82 “At some point”: Patricia Lynne Duffy, Blue Cats and Chartreuse Kittens (New York: Henry Holt, Times Books, 2001), 57. The other internationally known synesthete artist is painter David Hockney, also a sound-color synesthete. Unlike Mitchell, Hockney does not normally use his synesthesia in making art, with the exception of his stage sets for the Metropolitan Opera. According to Richard Cytowic, who tested Hockney, “David really didn’t know that there was anything unusual about his synesthesia until he began painting opera sets, that he began painting paintings to be watched while you listen. For example, he did a series of three French operas at the Met in New York, and the critics said, ‘Well this is unlike anything he’s ever done, and the colours and the shapes are so strange.’ And Hockney said, ‘Well I listened to the Ravel music and there’s a tree in one part of it, and there’s music that accompanies the tree,’ and he said, ‘When I listened to that music, the tree just painted itself you see.’ So for him, it’s an additional thing that helps to inform his art, but it’s not the driving force of it.” See Richard E. Cytowic, interview by Robin Hughes, 8 July 1996, transcript, The Health Report, Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
83 “Vowels”: Arthur Rimbaud, Complete Works, Selected Works, trans. Wallace Fowlie (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1966), 121.
84 “I am always”: Jean Fournier, Ninety (1993): 65.
85 “magical evening”: Sally Apfelbaum, interview with author, 25 July 2001.
86 “Ah, you gotta”: Joan Mitchell, quoted by Kate Van Houten, interview with author, 18 January 2002.
87 “that fucking ladder”: Joan Mitchell, quoted by Klaus Kertess, Joan Mitchell (New York: Harry N. Abrams), 40.
88 “She always”: Sally Apfelbaum, interview with author, 25 July 2001.
1 “Whoever you are”: Rainer Maria Rilke, “Entrance” in The Book of Images, trans. Edward Snow (San Francisco: North Point Press, 1991), 5. At the time of Joan’s last trip to New York, her friend Christian Blackwood, the co-producer of Joan Mitchell: Portrait of an Abstract Painter, died of cancer. Wanting someone to read for her a poem by Rilke or Hopkins at Blackwood’s funeral, Joan asked Nathan Kernan to suggest some possibilities, which he read to her one day in the back room at Miller. Upon hearing Rilke’s “Entrance,” she responded, “Save that one for me, you can read that for me.” He did, at her memorial service at the Whitney Museum the following April. See Nathan Kernan, “The Presence of Absence: The Paintings of Joan Mitchell,” in Cheim & Read Gallery, Joan Mitchell: Selected Paintings 1956–1992 (New York: Cheim & Read, 2002), unpaginated.
2 “motion … made still”: Mitchell, interviewed by Yves Michaud, “Conversation with Joan Mitchell,” in Xavier Fourcade Gallery, Joan Mitchell: New Paintings (New York: Xavier Fourcade Gallery, 1986), unpaginated.
3 “visual-kinetic experience”: Ora Lerman, “The Elusive Subject: Joan Mitchell’s Reflections on van Gogh,” Arts 65:1 (September 1990): 44.
4 As deliciously sun soaked: Mitchell once told Bill Scott that one of her favorite dreams was of meeting Cézanne in the woods. Bill Scott, interview with author, 31 March 2004.
5 The first Mitchell: Robert Miller, telephone interview with author, 9 August 2003.
6 “Oh, let’s give”: Marion Cajori, interview with author, 15 July 2002.
7 “classic Parisian light”: Marion Cajori, quoted by Carol Strickland, “Old Friend Films a Portrait of an Artist,” New York Times, 21 June 1992.
8 “rescued”: Marion Cajori, interview with author, 15 July 2002.
9 “traipsing around”: Cajori, quoted by Strickland.
10 “power-hungry”; “Nazi haircut”: John Cheim, interview with author, 10 July 2002.
11 “This motherfucker”: Marc Berlet, telephone interview with the author, 5 August 2006.
12 “really lovely”: Michael Brenson, telephone interview with author, 2 February 2007.
13 “Michael Brenson”: Ibid.
14 “The words”: Michael Brenson, “A Vintage Encounter,” letter to the editor, New York Times, 30 June 2002.
15 “woman artist”; “Maybe I’ve gone”: Mitchell, quoted by Klaus Kertess, “Her Passion,” New York Times, 16 June 2002.
16 “I only attacked”: Mitchell, quoted by Brenson, telephone interview with author, 2 February 2007.
17 “started pushing”: Jill Weinberg Adams, interview with author, 26 June 2002.
18 “This joint”: Mitchell to Von Blon, postmarked 17 December 1990. Collection of Joanne Von Blon.
19 “to live”; “I take the train”: Mitchell, interviewed by Yves Michaud, “Entretiens,” in Musée des Beaux-Arts de Nantes/Galerie Nationale du Jeu de Paume, Joan Mitchell (Paris: Éditions du Jeu de Paume, 1994), 30.
20 “means of feeling”: Mitchell, interviewed by Michaud, Joan Mitchell: New Paintings.
21 “as if”: Jacqueline Hyde, interview with author, 19 January 2002.
22 “Keep it going”: Samuel Beckett, Krapp’s Last Tape, and Embers (London: Faber and Faber, 1959), 33.
23 When it came: Jean Fournier, interview with author, 27 March 2003.
24 “but don’t come”; “And Joan developed”: Christopher Campbell, telephone interview with author, 10 February 2007.
25 “But I know you”: Jean Mouillère, personal communication to author, 18 May 2005.
26 “What!”: Mitchell, quoted by Jean Mouillère, personal communication to author, 18 May 2005.
27 “Allo, Coco”: Ibid.
28 “little acts”: Franck Bordas, interview with author, 15 January 2002. My thanks to Jack Scharr for the information he provided about the Carnegie Hall project.
29 “as a sort”: Ibid.
30 “Who’s that bum?”: Mitchell, quoted by Bordas, ibid.
31 “a sort of peacefulness”: Bordas, interview with author, 15 January 2002.
32 “Not bad”: Mitchell, quoted by Bordas, ibid.
33 “a kind of miracle”: Bordas, interview with author, 15 January 2002.
34 “Ah!”: Mitchell, quoted by Bordas, ibid.
35 “a genius”: Joan Mitchell, quoted by David Amram, interview with author, 9 January 2008.
36 “make yellow heavy”: Brice Marden, interviewed in Marion Cajori, director, Joan Mitchell: A Portrait of an Abstract Painter (New York: Art Kaleidoscope Foundation and Christian Blackwood Productions, 1992). Film.
37 “just precious”: Ornette Coleman, telephone interview with author, 19 January 2007.
38 “yakety-yakety-yak”: Ken Tyler, interview with author, 7 January 2003.
39 Among Joan’s visitors: Nathan Kernan, interview with author, 13 January 2003.
40 “And when I”: James Schuyler, “Daylight,” in Hymn to Life: Poems by James Schuyler (New York: Random House, 1974), 71.
41 “The sky”: Paul Verlaine, “Le ciel est, par-dessus le toit …,” Paul Verlaine, Selected Poems, trans. C. F. MacIntyre (Berkeley and London: University of California Press, 1948), 163.
42 “Will you stop”: Zuka Mitelberg, interview with author, 5 January 2002.
43 “You know”: Mitchell, quoted by Mitelberg, ibid.
44 “truly unhappy”: Mitelberg, interview with author, 5 January 2002.
45 “If you think”: Mitelberg to Mitchell, 10 February 1991. Collection of the Joan Mitchell Foundation.
46 “as if”: Joan Mitchell, quoted in Philippe Dagen, “La fureur de Joan Mitchell,” Le Monde, 2–3 August 1992.
47 “In a sense”: Christopher Campbell, telephone interview with author, 10 February 2007.
48 “It’s a horrible”: Carl Plansky, interview with author, 16 January 2001.
49 “some Ivy League type”: Mitchell, quoted in Solomon, “Light,” New York Times Magazine, 24 November 1991: 47.
50 “My painting”: Ibid.
51 “SIT DOWN!”: Mitchell, quoted by John Cheim, interview with author, 10 July 2002.
52 “Phyllis is still”: Joan Mitchell, quoted by Cathy Hill in a letter to Joan Mitchell, 6 December 1980. Collection of the Joan Mitchell Foundation. Joan did another painting entitled Phyllis.
53 “Blankness to me”: Mitchell, interviewed by Cora Cohen and Betsy Sussler, Bomb 17 (fall 1986): 20.
54 “The word blank”: Ibid., 22.
55 “morbidity”: Mitchell to Von Blon, postmarked 17 December 1990. Collection of Joanne Von Blon.
56 “Let everything happen”: “Gott spricht zu jedem nur, eh er ihn macht,” Rainer Maria Rilke, Rilke’s Book of Hours: Love Poems to God, trans. Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy (New York: Riverhead Books, 1996), 88.
57 “I feel time”: Mitchell, quoted in Solomon, 46.
58 “la France”: Mitchell, quoted by Christopher Campbell, telephone interview with author, 10 February 2007.
59 “secret studio”: Mitchell, quoted in Kertess, 9.
60 Working on three: Christopher Campbell, telephone interview with author, 10 February 2007.
61 “Get your ass”: Mitchell, quoted in Kertess, 9.
62 “You know”: Sally Turton, telephone interview with author, 28 December 2001.
63 Joan had recently: She titled another painting Gentian Violet in 1961 at the time her father was dying.
64 Sometimes she would: Guy Bloch-Champfort, telephone interview with author, 26 March 2009.
65 “God, Harms”: Mitchell, quoted by Robert Harms, interview with author, 18 July 2002.
66 “Don’t worry”: Mitchell, quoted in Kernan, “The Presence,” Joan Mitchell, unpaginated.
67 “illuminating”: Brochure for Poems, Tyler Graphics Ltd.
68 “It’s all over”: Mitchell, quoted by Gisèle Barreau, interview with author, 29 March 2003.
69 “Jean, I’m in”: Mitchell, quoted by Jean Fournier, interview with author, 27 March 2003.
70 “Matisse!”: Mitchell, quoted by Ken Tyler, interview with author, 7 January 2003.
71 “You know”: Mitchell, quoted by John Cheim, interview with author, 10 July 2002.
72 “He knew how”: Joan Mitchell, quoted by Tyler, interview with author, 7 January 2003.
73 “really cooking”: Tyler, interview with author, 7 January 2003.
74 “Let’s cut”: Mitchell, quoted by Tyler, ibid.
75 “a wreck”: Tyler, interview with author, 7 January 2003.
76 “my gardener”: Mitchell, quoted by Gisèle Barreau, interview with author, 29 March 2003.
77 “Neither man”: Mitchell, quoted by Monique Frydman, interview with author, 16 January 2002.
78 “like a queen”: Zuka Mitelberg, interview with author, 5 January 2002.
79 “to loosen up”: Jean Fournier, interview with author, 27 March 2003.
80 “the sense and worth”: Donald Posner, Antoine Watteau (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1984), 277.
81 “memorable and moving”: Daniel Abadie and Henry-Clausseau, “Preface,” in Musée des Beaux-Arts de Nantes/Galerie Nationale du Jeu de Paume, Joan Mitchell (Paris: Éditions du Jeu de Paume, 1994), 8.
82 “Jean, I would”: Mitchell, quoted by Jean Fournier, interview with author, 27 March 2003.
83 “With Joan Mitchell”: Jack Lang, quoted in “Abstract Painter Joan Mitchell Dies at 66,” Washington Post, 1 November, 1992, B14.
84 “I—‘Joan Just Girl’ ”: Mitchell to Von Blon, postmarked 17 December 1990.
85 Her hospitalization: Guy Bloch-Champfort, telephone interview with author, 26 March 2009.
86 Nonetheless, her dual 1994 exhibitions: Scott, “In the Eye of the Tiger,” Art in America 83:3 (March 1995): 71.
87 “My God!”: Mitchell, quoted by Jean Mouillère, personal communication to author, 18 May 2005.
88 “A Joan Mitchell canvas”: Pierre Schneider, handwritten essay for Joan Mitchell exhibition at Jacques Dubourg and Galerie Lawrence, 8–26 May 1962.
89 “I become”: Mitchell, quoted in Bernstock, 69.