‘Untitled’, chalk pastel on paper, vivid blue and red abstract imagery, pencil-signed lower right. Provenance: Andre Emmerich Gallery Inc, New York (see label on reverse). Condition: this chalk pastel on yellowed paper (deckle-edge) is unfixed. The upper right edge of the paper has a slight crease. Known for her highly emotive gestural abstraction, Joan Mitchell was one of the most prominent members of the second generation of Abstract Expressionists. Mitchell painted highly structured, large-scale compositions featuring vibrant, violent bursts of color and light, often influenced by landscape painting and informed by her emotional understanding of the world around her. Mitchell was one of the only female artists of her generation to achieve critical and public acclaim, and her work was featured in the famous Ninth Street Show of 1951, which introduced the world to the emerging American avant-garde. Mitchell was a devoted student of art as well as a talented painter, who worked in a variety of mediums including oil on canvas, pastel on paper, and lithographic printing. She developed an intimate understanding of color through her admiration of the work of Henri Matisse and Vincent van Gogh and created an art form completely her own, continuing her investigation of abstraction for the rest of her career. Joan Mitchell’s work has influenced subsequent generations of artists and is featured in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, Tate Modern, and many of the world’s most distinguished institutions.Overall Size: 18 1/2 x 14 1/2 in. Sight Size: 15 1/2 x 11 1/2 in.Deckle-edge paper size: 16 x 12 inches