I've always been told that I was a painter's painter.. .What does that mean?.. .That painters like my painting and the big wide world overlooks it, I suppose?.. .Well, I know.. .To me, it would have meant that - this is pre this new rage in buying and selling paintings - that, I think, that the formal values, like light, space, color, all those things that a painting is made up of, as well as the Jacob going up the ladder or Venus on the half shell or something [chuckles] would be what interested the painter. And perhaps the public would want the picture of the Christ child, so to speak. You know what I mean.
American painter (1925-1992)
Joan Mitchell (February 12, 1925 – October 30, 1992) was an American "second generation" Abstract expressionism painter and printmaker. She was an essential member of the American abstract expressionist movement, even though much of her career took place in France and from 1959 her definite place.
From: Wikiquote (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Showing quotes in randomized order to avoid selection bias. Click Popular for most popular quotes.
I'm not so sure I could have done otherwise, but I wish I.. .I'm re-going to a French shrink now, and she's helped me a lot. I wish I'd gone sooner, because I think women are inclined more than men to be self-destructive, and I really think I had the masochistic medal there for a while, and I, you know, I want to, that I wish I had stopped. I think it's also very masochistic to sit and cry in my spilt Scotch for areas in my life that have been very creepy and that I should have cut, left sooner. So what's, that's, I feel sorry about that. But I'm getting to [me, be] perhaps more, oh, I don't know, trying to look at that in a more positive way. Maybe I got something out of that too, I don't know.. .Maybe. I mean.. .I feel also uncomfortable about staying in France, but then, if I could only make sort of a.., instead of saying negative, 'I'm too lazy to move,' a positive thing, 'I really like this house. I really like this view. I really like Paris better than New York' - or not better, or equally, or differently, or something, which is quite true - instead of sitting - which I can do, I used to do - and missing the country and missing New York, or missing France.
And then the spring of '48 I toddled off to Paris on a Liberty ship.. .Yes, and arriving in Le Havre on that Liberty ship and seeing all those—the sun was coming up—and seeing all those ships sunk.. It was hardly.. .I mean, war, war, war, war... .I went to Paris, and I stayed with Zuka and Louis [Mitelberg] [her husband then, the cartoonist 'Tim']. And I looked for a place—and found it on Rue Gallande. Across the river was Notre Dame. That was all of four dollars a month, with a hole on the stairs as a toilet and a spigot with cold water and one light-bulb. That was all the electricity there was. But this view, I mean, God!.. .Saint Julien le Pauvre [Greek Orthodox Church, oldest in Paris] was right in front of me. And so I painted there.
And I came [to New York, 1945].. .It was just after the war and I thought it was a little early to get over there [to Europe]. So I spent the winter under the Brooklyn Bridge, on the Brooklyn side, living with Barney Rosset, and I came here [to New York] to study with Hofmann.. .And I went to Hofmann's class and I couldn't understand a word he said so I left, terrified. But he and I became friends later on. Friends, but I never studied with him..