Intelligence Squared The Specialist | From Canvas to Canon: Joan Mitchell’s King of Spades, with Courtney Kremers
Mar 21, 2026
A deep look at Joan Mitchell’s breakthrough painting and why its scale and palette changed perceptions. Discussion of her fierce independence within the male-dominated New York School. Exploration of sensory influences like synesthesia and the painting’s creation in Paris, exhibitions, and market twists that shaped its legacy.
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Mitchell's 1955 Moment Of Artistic Synthesis
- Joan Mitchell synthesized New York School physicality with European color influences to create a unique lyrical abstraction language by 1955.
- She merged Pollock's body-driven painting with Matisse's color and Mondrian's structure, forming a synesthetic, emotional visual world.
White As Structural Element In King Of Spades
- King of Spades is a large, color-dense canvas where white functions both as negative space and a structural, muscular element.
- The painting uses multiple greens, blues, and cardinal red slashes across a 90×78 inch oil surface to create layered depth.
Painting Rolled Up Wet From Paris To New York
- Mitchell painted King of Spades in a Paris studio, rolled it up wet, and shipped it to New York to show at the Stable Gallery.
- The canvas later entered Graham Gund's collection and first sold at auction in 1989 for about $450,000.
