Preparatory drawing for In Memory of My Feelings
Joan Mitchell
American, 1925–1992
1967
A preparatory crayon on acetate in which Joan Mitchell maps energetic, layered gestures and tonal smudges as a study for her 1967 painting In Memory of My Feelings.
A dense, vibrating tangle of looping, scratchy black strokes, smudges and cross-hatched marks meets the ghostly transparency of the acetate—all enclosed by penciled registration lines and the handwritten note “BLACK” at the top, giving the sheet an urgent, improvisatory presence.
As a working drawing by a key postwar American abstractionist, it shows how Mitchell translated swift, painterly improvisation into composed fields of feeling and helped legitimize drawing on translucent supports as part of lyrical Abstract Expressionism.
Medium
Crayon on acetate
Dimensions
sheet (each): 14 x 10 7/8" (35.5 x 27.6 cm)
Classification
Department
Credit
Gift of the artist
Accession
2202.1967.77.a-b
Palette
Art Terms
Exhibitions
