Lithographs

In 1981, Joan Mitchell traveled to New York to collaborate with the esteemed printmaker Kenneth Tyler, who had convinced the Abstract Expressionist that the most fitting printmaking technique for her gestural style was lithography. While Mitchell’s earlier prints, mostly silkscreens and etchings, were typically dull or neutral in color, her first series of lithographs were vibrant, filled with cobalt blues, lime greens, and neon yellows. Some prints would feature as many as 10 different hues. “Don’t give me any of your gooey guck colors,” Tyler remembers Mitchell telling him in the studio. A decade later, Mitchell collaborated with Tyler—who had become one of her lifelong friends—on a second portfolio of lithographs. For these works, she focused on her favorite natural subjects—trees, sunflowers, weeds, and fields—and created the largest prints of her career, measuring as large as 51 by 79 inches. Sadly, Mitchell was diagnosed with advanced lung cancer while working on the series in …