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REVOLUTIONARY WOMEN
Women artists of Abstract Expressionism
By Amy Cappellazzo
A movement towering above others in 20th century American art, Abstract Expressionism was defined by an artist's ability to create works that emphasized the emotional responses of both the artist and the viewer.
Like Pollock, de Kooning, Rothko and their other male counterparts, Joan Mitchell, Lee Krasner and Helen Frankenthaler, each made their mark with distinct repertoires of painterly gestures from the lyrical to the violent. Examples by each of these revolutionary women form an outstanding grouping of Abstract Expressionist works in Post-War and Contemporary Evening and Day sales on 11 and 12 November.
Two works by Joan Mitchell are offered, each from a different period of her career. An early, rare painting from 1953-54, No. 3 is a signature example from this period. Here Mitchell defines her style compositionally and chromatically, displaying the boldness and elegance that comes to define all her work. After 1967 Mitchell was strongly influenced by her relocation to the French countryside and her re-invigorated relationship with landscape and the natural world. Her 1971 epic painting Plowed Field is a magnum opus for the artist, detailing her love for the vastness of nature and recalling her childhood memories of the open Midwestern landscapes. Grand in scale, this work is an excellent example of Mitchell's sense of physicality and spatial orientation.
Astonishing in color and emotionally exuberant in composition, Lee Krasner's Celebration, 1960, is the artist's most important work ever to come to auction. Densely packed brushstrokes in an almost choreographed manner, coupled with the horizontal format, give Celebration the feeling of landscape similar to Mitchell's Plowed Field. But Krasner's is based on a different sense of nature, taking her inspiration from the bustling, fast-paced energy of New York life, with each gesture fluid and expansive. Celebration is from Krasner's most lauded series, which was entitled Earth Green. Most comparable examples are in museum collections.
Helen Frankenthaler's Mountain Storm, 1955, is a stunning example of Abstract Expressionism. Daring in brushstroke and color, it is masterful in composition. In this work one sees the primary elements of what became her stain paintings. The soaked pools of paint here are the origins of the formal vocabulary that pre-figure her later work. Her 1959 work Courtyard of El Greco's House is a classic of her stain paintings. This work was realized after a visit to Spain the artist made in 1958 on her honeymoon with Robert Motherwell. Juxtaposing raw color against the raw, white canvas, this work evokes the emotions of landscape and place.
Non-conformist in both art and life, Mitchell, Krasner and Frankenthaler defied the gender roles of their time, formed an important core to the Abstract Expressionist movement, and influenced generations of artists from Kenneth Noland to Morris Louis, on to today's generation of young artists from Terry Winters to Sue Williams.
Amy Cappellazzo, International Co-Head, Christie's Post-War & Contemporary Art Department
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JOAN MITCHELL (1925-1992)
Sale 1301, Lot 31
Plowed Field, 1971
Oil on canvas
Estimate: $600,000-800,000
LEE KRASNER (1908-1984)
Sale 1301, Lot 27
Celebration, 1960
Oil on canvas
Estimate: $300,000-400,000
HELEN FRANKENTHALER (b. 1928)
Sale 1301, Lot 26
Mountain Storm, 1955
Oil on canvas
Estimate: $500,000-700,000
HELEN FRANKENTHALER (b. 1928)
Sale 1302, Lot 318
Courtyard of El Greco's House, 1959
Oil on canvas
Estimate: $200,000-300,000
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