![]() ![]() Albers tends to gush when describing Mitchell’s art, but she conveys the intensity of the creative process as well as the essential look and feel of the paintings. She picked fights with nearly everyone.Īnd yet, this is a compelling story about a deeply conflicted artist who forged meaningful if fitful relationships and found great joy in painting. Angry artists aren’t exactly rare, but Mitchell is surely in the hall of champions. Her thoroughly researched book details Mitchell’s alcoholism, depression, sexual exploits, foul-mouthed arguments, violent outbursts and general rudeness. Albers, whose writings include a biography of photographer Tina Modotti, doesn’t flinch. ![]() No complete account of Mitchell’s life could be pleasant. Although relegated to the “second generation” of Abstract Expressionists - and resentful of the label - she is remembered for building upon the breakthroughs of her elders, most notably Willem de Kooning, in enormously energetic paintings inspired by landscape and memory. Her ultimate weapon, though, was a body of work that could not be ignored. Mitchell retaliated by calling herself a “lady painter” while emulating the worst behavior of her male colleagues. If biographer Patricia Albers sizes up her subject accurately, Mitchell’s scattershot rage was fallout from a nearly lifelong battle to prove herself to a father “who never let her forget that he needed a son, not a daughter” and to an art world that had little respect for women’s work. ![]() The famously cantankerous artist didn’t suffer many friends either. ![]()
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