The Louis Vuitton Foundation offers an inspired pairing of two artists known for their exuberant and joyous celebration of the natural environment.
The MONET-MITCHELL and Joan Mitchell Retrospective at the Louis Vuitton Foundation in Paris, in the Frank Gehry-designed Louis Vuitton Foundation is not to be missed. The exhibition has two parts, a ‘dialogue’ between two exceptional artists, Claude Monet and Joan Mitchell and a more indepth retrospective on the work of Mitchell.
Partnering with the Musée Marmottan Monet, the dialogue shows the rapport with nature of both Monet’s abstract impressionism and Mitchell’s abstract expressionism. There appears to be a meeting of minds. The rapprochement between the two artists was reinforced by Joan Mitchell’s move in 1968 to Vétheuil close to where Monet lived between 1878-1881.
Faced with the same landscape – namely the banks of the Seine – Monet and Mitchell developed a pictorial approach that they defined in similar terms, with Monet referring to “sensation” and Mitchell to “feelings”. Inspired by the natural surroundings of the Paris Region, both artists shared an acute sensitivity to light and colour.
“A ‘dialogue’ between two exceptional artists”
Through some seventy emblematic works by both artists, the exhibition offers the public an enchanting and immersive journey with striking visual and thematic parallels. There are thirty-five works by Claude Monet, including twenty-five artworks belonging to the Musée Marmottan. These paintings are in a ‘dialogue’ with thirty-five works – twenty-five paintings and ten pastels – by Joan Mitchell.
Alongside the “Monet-Mitchell” exhibition, the Fondation Louis Vuitton presents the most significant Joan Mitchell retrospective to be shown in Europe in almost 30 years. This exhibition, which is co-organized by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) and the Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) and presented in Paris by Fondation Louis Vuitton aims to raise public awareness of Joan Michell’s work.
“A unique opportunity to view two bodies of work that are otherwise scattered”
“I carry my landscapes around with me,” Mitchell often declared. Inspired by her memories, the feelings they evoked and by the work of great modern masters (Van Gogh, Cézanne, Matisse, and Monet, among others), Mitchell also found inspiration and equivalences in music and poetry, as emphasized by the numerous documents presented in the exhibition.
The exhibition is also a unique opportunity to view two bodies of work that are otherwise scattered hither and yon: Claude Monet’s Agapanthus triptych, which he considered to be “one of his four best series”; and Joan Mitchell’s La Grande Vallée: a selection of ten paintings from the Grand Vallée series (1983-84) brought together, almost four decades after its fragmentary exhibition at the Galerie Jean Fournier in 1984.
The exhibition will close on 27 February 2023.
www.fondationlouisvuitton.fr
