Photo: Spike Mafford / Zocalo Studios. Courtesy of the Friday Foundation

The Sink

Date1956

Maker Joan Mitchell American, 1925 - 1992

Label TextBorn and raised in Chicago, Mitchell was a rigorous athlete who was drawn to literature and painting—her mother was the poet Marion Strobel Mitchell. The artist moved to New York at an artistic inflection point in the late 1940s. She admired the work of Franz Kline and Willem de Kooning, visited their downtown studios, and soon became part of the younger set of Abstract Expressionist painters. Mitchell visited France repeatedly―by 1955 she was dividing her time between France and the United States―and she moved there permanently in 1959. The Sink is a defining lyrical work from this period, characterized by her lush and dynamic brushwork and vibrant color. Asked of her work, she said, “That particular thing I want can’t be verbalized.... I’m trying for something more specific than movies of my everyday life: To define a feeling.”

Object number2020.14.15

ProvenanceThe artist; [Stable Gallery, New York]; [Ferus Gallery, Los Angeles, California]; Mr. and Mrs. Abe Adler, Los Angeles, California; [Adler Gallery, Los Angeles, California]; purchased from gallery by Jane and Richard E. Lang, Seattle, Washington, 1977; Friday Foundation, Seattle, Washington, 2018; to Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, Washington, 2020

Photo CreditPhoto: Spike Mafford / Zocalo Studios. Courtesy of the Friday Foundation

Exhibition HistoryNew York, New York, Stable Gallery, Joan Mitchell, Mar. 3 - 22, 1957. St. Louis, Missouri, Givens Hall Gallery, Washington University, Thirteen American Painters, 1958. Seattle, Washington, Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington, Art in America: Washington Collections—An American Tradition: Abstraction, Dec. 4, 1981 - Jan. 17, 1982. Seattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, The Richard and Jane Lang Collection, Feb. 2 - Apr. 1, 1984. Cat. no. 31, pp. 44-45, reproduced. Pullman, Washington, Museum of Art, Washington State University, Art & Context: The '50s and '60s, Sept. 29 - Dec. 15, 2006. No cat. no., p. 38, reproduced. Seattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, Big Picture: Art after 1945, July 23, 2016 - May 16, 2021 [on view Nov. 20, 2018 - May 16, 2021]. Seattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, Frisson: The Richard E. Lang and Jane Lang Davis Collection, Oct. 15, 2021 - Nov. 27, 2022. Text by Amy Rahn. No cat. no., pp. 22, 42, 100-05, 189, reproduced pp. 16 (fig. 5), 101 (pl. 8), 104 (fig. 44), 182. Seattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, Reverberations: Contemporary Art and Modern Classics, Dec. 22, 2022 - ongoing.Published ReferencesMonet Mitchell. Fondation Louis Vuitton and Musee Marmottan Monet, 2022: pp 144, fig.8

Credit LineGift of the Friday Foundation in honor of Richard E. Lang and Jane Lang Davis

Dimensions54 5/8 x 111 3/4 in. (138.7 x 283.9 cm)

MediumOil on canvas