Forsythe Window

Artist Nancy Mitchnick (American, born 1947)

Date1973

MediumOil on canvas

Dimensions60 × 60 in. (152.4 × 152.4 cm)

ClassificationsPainting

Credit LineGift of Dennis Nawrocki, 2014

Object numberUAC6135

DescriptionOne of Detroit's most well-known painters, Nancy Mitchnick has been painting facets of Detroit's urban landscape since the seventies. Mitchnick graduated from Detroit's Cass Tech, before getting her BFA from Wayne State University in 1972. She continued graduate coursework at the same institution before moving to New York to attend Hunter College. Along with other Cass Corridor artists, Mitchnick worked out of a studio called the Forsythe Building. This painting, done in that studio, illustrates Mitchnick's unique approach to painting that blurs the line between representational painting and abstraction. Though made up of simple, quickly applied brush strokes, this painting still clearly depicts a window scene. The panes, rendered in varying subtle hues recall the color field paintings of Mark Rothko inviting the viewer to meditate on the shifting colors. Forsythe Window was shown at the "Kick Out the Jams" exhibition at the Detroit Institute of Arts in 1980, which was the first retrospective exhibition of Cass Corridor artist shown by a major museum.
Text by Aleksey Kondratyev

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