Born in Chicago in 1925, Joan Mitchell grew up to be a central figure of second-generation Abstract Expressionism. Like so many of her contemporaries, she moved to New York in her 20s, where her disobedient gestural brushstrokes wielded vibrant swaths of color. Often inspired by nature, its chaos as well as its beauty, Mitchell once explained that she tried “to paint what it leaves me with.” In her later years, Mitchell settled in Vétheuil, a quaint town near Paris where Monet once lived. This show focuses on the years between 1979 and 1985, when she found a home in France, surrounded by lush gardens. —Elena Clavarino