‘Bedford’ series 1981
Signed and numbered in pencil (at lower right): Joan Mitchell 13/70
The TGL chop [hexagon] is embossed lower right corner
Edition: edition of 70 plus 16AP, SP, RTP, PPI, PPII, A, C
Publisher: Tyler Graphics Ltd, Bedford Village, New York
Published in New York in 1981
Printed in two colors, orange and black.
According to Tyler graphics notes, preparation work for continuous-tone lithography was done by Kenneth Tyler. Lee Funderburg worked on the plate preparation and processing and Roger Campbell, Funderburg and Tyler all proofed. The edition printing was done by Campbell and Funderburg.
Literature: Catalogue Raisonné: TGL print documentation, 1981.
Joan Mitchell stands out as the most important woman in the American Abstract Expressionist movement of the 1940s and 50s, exhibiting alongside titans Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, and Barnett Newman. Mitchell was born in Illinois, and studied at Smith College. On a scholarship trip to Europe in the late 1940s, Mitchell began a passionate and life-long affair with France, and divided the rest of her time between homes there and in New York.
Mitchell’s work, although abstract, is grounded and inspired in landscape. Her work reflects the influence of Monet, Cézanne, and Van Gogh. As a result, her paintings have an organic flow to them, the seemingly scattered paint alluding to nature’s equally nuanced order.