Floor 4: Elizabeth Murray & Joan Mitchell (exiting Landing)
Overview
Gallery Wayfinding
You are in the Elizabeth Murray & Joan Mitchell Gallery. The gallery is brightly lit and all of the walls are white.
You've entered from the middle of the back wall of this wide, rectangular gallery, facing the long, far front wall. Featured predominantly on the far front wall is a large, three-panel painting by Joan Mitchell. On your right are two wall-mounted sculptures by Elizabeth Murray and an artist panel with a video about Murray. In front of you and on your left (including the far front wall) are three paintings by Joan Mitchell with an artist panel and a video about Mitchell. To access the audio for the videos, use the handheld listening device attached to the panels.
There is a bench in the center of the gallery.
The exit to the Philip Guston Gallery is in the front right corner. The QR code is at the threshold on the right wall, marked with a perpendicular tactile floor strip.
Label
"I really enjoy making [my paintings], and I like the thing-ness of them. It also is my nature to say, "You don’t like objects? Well, I'll give you objects. You're not going to believe the object I’m working on right now."
—Murray, 1987
Elizabeth Murray
Born 1940, Chicago; died 2007, Washington County, New York
Elizabeth Murray initially planned to be a commercial artist before encountering the works of Paul Cézanne and other artists at the Art Institute of Chicago, which persuaded her to become a painter. She arrived in New York in 1967, at a moment when painting was being declared dead, but she never wavered in her commitment to it. Her exuberant, highly physical works draw from the language of cartoons and graffiti and merge abstraction with representation. In the eccentrically shaped canvases she began making in the late 1970s, Murray quite literally expanded the boundaries of painting, and by the late 1980s, her complex artworks were projecting into the viewer's space.
Related Media
Transcript
Elizabeth Murray:
I wasn't really thinking of it as anything in terms of using a shape—anything that was a kind of discovery except a self-discovery. But I think that, you know, it's just a way of trying to push boundaries, of trying to expand what the potential is for making a painting, you know, like that.
Whatever I do, I always think of myself as a painter, even though the shapes get more sculptural and come off the wall further. To me, it's always trying to see what kind of strangeness or oddness you can push the possibility of painting into.
And I think that, you know, that the impetus comes from—in California I felt bored, you know, like you need something to inspire yourself, to make yourself go on painting. And that was one of the things, one of the possibilities. The revelations I've had have come; I've had revelations through using the shapes. I mean, I think it was a good move for me, that it was a very, you know, it's turned into something that seems very rich, in terms of a way for me to explore painting possibilities. But when I was doing it, I really had no idea what it would lead to.
Label
"I paint from remembered landscapes that I carry with me—and remembered feelings of them, which of course become transformed."
—Joan Mitchell, 1958
Joan Mitchell
Born 1925, Chicago; died 1992, Vétheuil, France
Raised in a well-to-do Chicago household that valued culture, Joan Mitchell studied art and poetry from an early age. By 1950, she committed herself to abstraction and became one of the few women to gain recognition in the male-dominated art circles of postwar New York. Though her energetic, expressive marks are sometimes linked to her background as a competitive athlete, she worked slowly, to distill memories of places, people, and her beloved dogs. In 1959, Mitchell moved permanently to France, eventually settling in Vétheuil, north of Paris, where Claude Monet once lived. There, she painted sweeping, multi-panel compositions that radiate intensity and color.
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Transcript
Interviewer: What do you paint?
Mitchell: Well, I get a—I look at that, or I have a feeling or remembered feelings from nature or nature, and I paint out of landscape entirely, but I can't copy it. It's too—it's too good the way it is.
Interviewer: Out of landscape, going through you?
Mitchell: Yes, I suppose. But then, the painting tells me what to do. It's very hard to talk about.
Mitchell: I worry about scale a lot. But I do small paintings. These aren't—I love to do small paintings. I love to do big paintings.
Interviewer: You prefer doing big paintings?
Mitchell: Well, I don't see that well and I feel that with a big painting, I'm totally in it. But I also, I mean, I these I did just recently, uh, I don't know, but I'll show you. I think they have perhaps, um, I hope when they succeed to have the same scale as the large painting. I'll show you a couple of big ones too, to compare. Okay. Um, for example, this, which I don't think is finished, is going to New York.
Interviewer: It's going for the show in New York?
Mitchell: Yes, and I've been working very hard, but I think sometimes the small paintings—I would like them to have the same feeling of scale as a big painting. This is a tree. I mean, my idea of a tree, which has nothing to do with the real tree except to me, it has to do with a real tree. I think to copy a real tree would be absolutely impossible. I can't quote van Gogh, but it's in one letter he wrote about, one of his so many beautiful letters, where he says he gives gratitude to the sunflower because it exists. And I give gratitude to trees because they exist. And that's all what my painting is.
Objects
5 objects in the order you'll encounter them from this entrance. Select an object to view details.
Artwork Label Text
1987
Oil on canvas
The Doris and Donald Fisher Collection at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
Acquired by the Fisher family, 1994
It takes time to recognize that this warped canvas represents a table with legs in the form of four small elements that project from the canvas. On its surface Murray painted the dark-blue outline of another splayed table, along with an elongated spoon and a cup filled with an orange-red liquid that splatters outward. She drew upon imagery from her immediate surroundings—everyday objects in her studio and home. The forms unmistakably reference the body, with suggestions of orifices and fluids. At the same time, the pool of orange and the giant drops refer to the medium of paint itself.
Visual Description
An irregularly contoured, oil-on-canvas work about seven feet tall, nine feet wide, and one foot deep—higher than a tall person and several feet wider than their outstretched arms—presents a composition containing cool greens, soft teals, pale blues, white lines and shapes, and a vivid, orange-red core.
Near the center of the piece is a large, orange-red oval shape with a darker, brushed core with shadows along the interior edges. Within that oval form, and to the left of the brushed core, there is a hole in the canvas that is about eight inches in diameter. It exposes the white wall behind the piece, and its interior sides are subtly mottled with blue tones. A white-and-pale-blue ring encircles the hole, and a thick, white ribbon trails from this ring and loops downward and to the right, back up along the curved upper portion of the piece, and then to the left side of the piece, where it widens into a large teardrop shape colored off-white and teal.
Several red, teardrop-shaped marks radiate around the red-orange oval and the hole in the center of the piece. Some of these shapes point outward, like splashes or droplets, and some shapes extend onto the edges of the canvas. In the lower center, a second circular motif appears as a blue circle with a teal center, all encircled by a white ring.
Near the lower-left quadrant, a small, layered circle shape with a white center is surrounded by tiny red droplet marks. In the lower right corner, the teal canvas comes to a sharp point and juts forward, toward the viewer and away from the wall.
In the upper right portion of the canvas, the corner of the piece also curls inward, away from the wall. Here, short, raised teal bars or tabs project inward and appear to hug the corner that has curled in. A similar raised teal bar appears along the upper left side of the piece. This one is shaped in a gentle arc that bends to the left and extends a few inches beyond the curving edge of the canvas. In total, there are four such raised 3D elements; the artist intended for these to represent table legs curling inward. The third element is on the left side near the center-top, and the fourth is on the bottom edge of the canvas closer to the left corner.
The edges of the piece are several inches thick and reveal strips of raw canvas as well as painted features from other motifs on the piece.
A low museum stanchion has been placed on the floor around this work.
Artwork Label Text
1988
Oil on canvas
The Doris and Donald Fisher Collection at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
Acquired by the Fisher family, 1988
As in My Manhattan, January, on view nearby, this work features a central circular opening from which cartoonish drops flow. Here, however, the surface is a complex, multipart form that bulges out and loops back on itself. To prepare the canvases for works like Things to Come, Murray first sketched her ideas, then modeled them in clay, then translated them into full-scale drawings from which assistants built the shaped wooden supports. Such works blur the boundaries between painting and sculpture. The artist noted: "They're really paintings, but I think that they do transgress—they're transgressors into space."
Visual Description
A large, roughly nine-by-nine foot oil-on-canvas work with notable physical depth—about the size of two large freestanding wardrobes placed side-by-side on the wall—forms an irregular, sculptural-looking shape of bent and broken planes painted in saturated ultramarine blue and luminous golden yellow.
The composition is split into an upper and lower mass that nearly meet around a circular hole near the center, creating an opening edged with textured, reddish-brown paint and visible canvas thickness. Across the surface, broad yellow forms are bordered by dark outlines and shadowy gradients that reflect folds and bulges. The blue areas are punctuated with angular zigzags and small triangular shards in yellow and orange.
The upper portion of the sculpture is split down the middle by a jagged separation that resembles a lightning bolt, reaching from the top of the piece nearly to the hole in the center. On the upper left portion, the left corner is shaped in a way that suggests it has been rolled or peeled back and tucked underneath itself. From the side, the raw canvas underside of this rolled portion is visible, along with its wood frame and supports. Numerous splashes of paint are also visible on the exposed wooden supports and underside of the canvas. Along the edge of the left side, the tip of the rolled, peeled-back corner comes forward and wraps around the front of the canvas like the tip of a tentacle. This corner, or tip, is painted with several off-white, teardrop-shaped marks on a background of black and reddish-pink.
On the upper right side, the corner also gives the impression that the top has been rolled or peeled back. On the edge of this portion, the raw canvas is exposed, showing a variety of red, blue, black, and yellow paint marks and splashes. On the front of this section, the canvas is painted the same ultramarine blue with a single linear row of golden yellow triangles that snake from the top of the peeled part almost to the bottom, and then meander back up. Three additional teardrop shapes appear near the top of the peeled-back corner.
The hole in the center has a depth of about six inches. The hole is hollow and exposes the white wall. In the interior of the hole, the wood frame is visible, and it is covered with splashes of paint. On the right side, the edges of the hole do not connect, and these open edges extend to a longer, jagged division across the piece that separates the top and bottom portions.
The lower section sweeps in a long, curling arc, ending at the right in a flourish of yellow edged with greenish-black shadow. On the left side of the lower portion, the corner is shaped in a way to give the impression that it has curled away from the wall and into itself; the tip of the corner—which also contains three teardrop- shapes—touches the bottom of the central hole, like another tentacle tip. On the right side of the lower portion, the canvas appears to ripple in folds, exposing the piece’s wood supports and unfinished edges.
Artwork Label Text
1989
Oil on canvas
The Doris and Donald Fisher Collection at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
Acquired by the Fisher family, 2008
In Bracket, as in many of her later paintings, Mitchell joined multiple canvases to create a panoramic, immersive composition, producing something of the experience of being in an actual landscape. Bold strokes of cobalt blue, emerald, and sienna are set in different arrangements on each panel, suggesting perhaps the passage of time. Mitchell painted this just three years before her death. Despite declining health, she infused it with all the energy of her earlier paintings of the 1950s. She explained: "I just got up on that f—ing ladder and told myself, 'This stroke has to work.'"
Visual Description
This oil-on-canvas painting about nine feet tall and fifteen feet wide—about the size of a small movie theater screen—contains three joined vertical panels with large and colorful brushstrokes. The central panel is slightly wider than the right and left panels, but across all three panels, a predominantly white ground is overrun by broad, swooping brushstrokes and scraped patches of saturated color. Intense cobalt and ultramarine blues are concentrated across the upper half of the central panel and extend into the right panel. Dense greens cross with the blues in ribboning arcs, while bright oranges and golden yellows flare in clustered areas. This is most noticeable toward the upper left panel and the upper right panel, which creates mirrored bursts at the edges.
In the lower third areas across all three panels, darker earthy browns and maroons gather in angular strokes and blotches. These are interspersed with occasional deep blue marks. The paint marks vary from opaque, thick passages to thinner applications; numerous drips run vertically downward, especially from blue areas near the top and from mixed colors in the middle. Smudged transitions and softened whites partially mask underlying colors, leaving semitransparent traces of earlier marks. A sweeping band of blue dominates the top center, while the lower areas open into a lighter, hazier space punctuated by warm, jagged yellow marks and scattered stains.
Artwork Label Text
1987
Oil on canvas
The Doris and Donald Fisher Collection at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
Acquired by the Fisher family, 1989
Visual Description
A tall, oil-on-canvas painting—spanning over three feet higher than a tall adult and wider than their outstretched arms—presents an abstract field of colorful masses and sweeping brushwork over a predominantly white background. Broad, opaque strokes and soft patches build clustered forms: at our upper left, there is a bright yellow-orange cloud of paint with areas of thinner application revealing layers of pale pink and white beneath; at our upper right, a heavy dark green section spreads in blocky, overlapping strokes with multiple vertical drips running downward.
Across the middle, saturated cobalt and ultramarine blues intersect with teal and grassy greens, forming a central, swirling band of interlaced arcs and directional marks. Toward our right and closer to the center, a darker, mottled mass mixes deep blue with maroon and reddish-brown, edged and punctuated by small flashes of orange-yellow; this area also shows pronounced dripping and pooling.
Along the left side and lower portions, orange-yellow strokes reappear in broken patches and smeared marks, while the lower center contains swooping green and yellow gestures that thin out into translucent washes. Throughout, the white ground remains visible in gaps between strokes, and numerous drips and streaks descend vertically. The painting is in a light brown wood frame.
Artwork Label Text
1956
Oil on canvas
The Doris and Donald Fisher Collection at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
Acquired by the Fisher family, 1982
In the upper portion of this composition, arcing green lines interwoven with passages of white suggest the spreading canopy of a tree, while a concentration of thicker marks below hint at a trunk. The dense network of brushstrokes might also be read as the overlapping leaves of an artichoke (normally spelled artichaut in French). Here, as she often did, Mitchell sought to capture her personal response to the landscape, as filtered through her memory. "I could certainly never mirror nature," she said. "I would like more to paint what it leaves with me."
Visual Description
An abstract, oil-on-canvas painting—about as tall as an average adult and as wide as their outstretched arms—contains a field of layered brushwork that clusters into a condensed center. Set against a creamy off-white ground, looping lines and quick strokes in teal, turquoise, blue, olive, pale gray, and brown crisscross and knot together, especially across the upper half.
The middle of the canvas contains interlaced, calligraphic strokes—some are thin, while others are thick and more opaque—forming a web that alternates between transparent softened passages and heavy paint applications. Toward the lower center, darker, more saturated patches of green and deep blue collect in both vertical and horizontal strokes. The edges are open and pale, with faint, sweeping traces of color and diluted washes. At the bottom right, a handwritten signature reads "J. Mitchell." The painting is in a white wood frame.