Joan Snyder (American, b. 1940)
Mistory 1973
Oil, wallpaper flocking, felt tip pen, ink and graphite on canvas
Museum Purchase
1988.034.001
Mistory is an example of Snyder’s well-known “stroke paintings” that she created in the 1970s. At first glance this work might seem chaotic, but notice the way she has evenly divided the painting into three vertical sections, each rendered with its own character. She once said of her paintings, “I wanted to tell a story and I wanted there to be different sections. I wanted a beginning, middle, and end, many different parts, happy, sad, tragic parts, many things happening at once, different instruments, different sounds, rhythms.”
