Born in Chicago, Joan Mitchell moved in 1947 to New York City, where she became an important Abstract Expressionist. This work includes flickering touches and broader brushstrokes, along with seemingly random drips and stains. Colors are revealed and concealed within a luminous white light that seems to flow like water or mist. Vertical support slabs near the edges are connected by a suspended span of upward-rising strokes, while the dark horizontal bar at the top suggests passage into a void and the unknown.

Untitled was painted during a time of transition, due to Mitchell’s deepening relationship with the Abstract Expressionist artist Jean-Paul Riopelle in Paris. Between 1955 and 1959, she increasingly divided her time between New York and Paris, before settling permanently in France. Her imagery of support, suspension, and passage evokes a bridge, a favorite subject that Mitchell described as a symbol for “spanning a void” and “getting from one side to the other.”