"complete text of the Oral History interview with Joan Mitchell, 1986 Apr. 16 by Linda Nochlin - including sound excerpts"

“And then the spring of '48 I toddled off to Paris on a Liberty ship.. .Yes, and arriving in Le Havre on that Liberty ship and seeing all those—the sun was coming up—and seeing all those ships sunk.. It was hardly.. .I mean, war, war, war, war... .I went to Paris, and I stayed with Zuka and Louis . And I looked for a place—and found it on Rue Gallande. Across the river was Notre Dame. That was all of four dollars a month, with a hole on the stairs as a toilet and a spigot with cold water and one light-bulb. That was all the electricity there was. But this view, I mean, God!.. .Saint Julien le Pauvre was right in front of me. And so I painted there.”

“It is quite a narrow studio , I can never see a big four-panel all at once.. ..I can see two big panels. That’s about all.. .I had an awful lot going on at once, going back and forth. I turn to a wall . I cant paint with everything showing.”

“Well, I once wrote in - it's in Joan Mitchell Paints a Picture, as I remember, Irving Sandler, a long time ago, that I hated the word 'Nature' with a capital 'N.'.. .But now I accept it, I suppose. I mean, I really like trees and flowers and dogs and all that much more than.. ..a lot of other people .. .You know, I really do get pleasure out of.. .Great pleasure. Out of just looking at.. .But I have fun here too, you know.”

“.. the feeling in a line of poetry which makes it different from, a line of prose.. .Sentimentality is self-pity, your own swamp. Weeping in your own beer is not a feeling. It lacks dignity and hasn't an outside reference.”

“I've have tried to take from everybody .. .I can't close my eyes or limit my experiences.. .Because I live now, I am more interested in art now. It's different as any art is different from period to period. But it's no better or worse.”

“And the first studio I went to .. .I was trying to find de Kooning because he had a painting at the Whitney, which was in the old Studio School , you know.. .And I thought I would like to know him. I really dug his painting, and I dug Gorky's painting.. .But the first studio I went into was Franz Kline.. .and there were all these Klines, unstretched, hanging on the brick walls. Beautiful. You know, with the telephone book drawings all over the floor, and Kline yakking away, and it was just, I was out of my mind! And so from then on I got involved in the Artists Club. They allowed very few women in, and I was included for $35 a year. And I got very involved in the Cedar Bar and the whole thing..”