Between the mid-1950s and the early '60s, the paintings of Joan Mitchell (1925-92) grew exponentially in sophistication and strength. In the summer of 1953 she began to paint outdoors in the Hamptons, developing an engagement with nature, but with a crucial distinction from her male counterparts in the abstract expressionist movement. As the late curator and writer Klaus Kertess wrote, "Pollock's ...] 'I am nature' is very different from Mitchell's being with nature in memory. Pollock is more a shaman, Mitchell more a lover. But both share with van Gogh a high tuned, visceral sensitivity to movement. And both share the quality that Frank] O'Hara so aptly attributed to Pollock's paintings: 'lyrical desperation.'" This book looks at this period, in which Mitchell began to travel regularly between Paris and New York, and received her first major solo shows in the US and in France.