After spending the 1950s in New York and becoming identified with the Abstract Expressionist artists of the New York School, Joan Mitchell acquired a studio in Paris in 1959, and moved more or less permanently to France, where she would paint for the remainder of her life.

Like other artists working in an expressionist vein, Mitchell was a victim of the rage for pop art and hard-edge painting in the 1960's...Having the courage to follow her natural inclinations and maintain her independent stance, as [Barbara] Rose writes, Mitchell would eventually emerge from her separation from the New York scene 'as one of the strongest, most independent painters in the world.'

Mitchell's paintings from 1960-1962 are marked by a spirit of heightened passion and spontaneity: free-wheeling arm-long strokes swoop across the canvas, twist and tangle with drips and splatters, and often terminate in thick globs of paint...[They] present an array of contrasts: broad, robust strokes of vivid and deep colors concentrated at the center are played against delicate trailing lines of shimmering whites and high-keyed tones that dart inward from the thinly painted and stained surrounding areas...even the most lyrical paintings of 1960-1962 have an air of ferocity (J. Bernstock, Joan Mitchell, New York 1988, pp. 57-60).