Monet Mitchell

 

 

My first port of call on my last visit to Paris was the Fondation Louis Vuitton for this in-depth exhibition examining the relationship and stylistic resonances of the works of painters Claude Monet and Joan Mitchell. I felt this was a valid and fascinating premise for an exhibition. A complementary dialogue was formed between the works of late period Monet and American abstract artist Mitchell. Mitchell stated that she admired the late but not early Monet, and would have become familiar with his work due to her involvement with the Abstract Expressionist movement in 1950s New York when his painting underwent a revival in the US when his large Wisteria and Agapanthus panels were exhibited in American galleries. There are many connections between the lives and work of both artists. Both took inspiration from the French landscape, Monet of course from his famous garden in Giverny, and Mitchell from the land around the house where she lived in Vétheuil which coincidentally overlooked the house where Monet lived from 1878 to 1881. Both took similar approaches in their painting with Monet looking to create "impression" and "sensation" and Mitchell "feeling". Both were close to writers and poets who inspired and championed their work. Mitchell was the daughter of poet Marion Strobel and was close to writers James Schuyler and Samuel Beckett among others. Monet's circle included Émile Zola, Guy de Maupassant and Stéphane Malarmé. Both took inspiration from water and its reflective surface with Monet's famed garden and its lily ponds, and the Seine which passed through the Normandy landscape of Mitchell's adopted home, as well as her childhood memories of the waters of Lake Michigan. Most obvious though is the language of their styles with Monet's late works verging on abstraction, using short, lyrical brushstrokes to describe watery surfaces whilst Mitchell in her later works uses increasingly bolder, expressive, gestural strokes to describe remembered landscapes. Of the two artists I found Monet's work the more compelling, verging as it did on the cusp of abstraction, setting the scene and opening the doors for later painters like Mitchell.

 

 

 

 

Monet Mitchell

until 27th February 2023

Fondation Louis Vuitton

8 Av. du Mahatma Gandhi, 

75116 Paris, 

France