Joan Mitchell Paints a Symphony: La Grande Vallée Suite

Celebrate the creative process of pioneering American abstract painter Joan Mitchell in this beautifully illustrated STEAM picture book, perfect for all kinds of young creators.

It’s 1983, and American artist Joan Mitchell is in her studio outside Paris, transforming her emotions and memories into a symphony of colors and shapes. Inspired by her friend’s description of an idyllic hidden valley in France, Mitchell creates 21 massive paintings--her Grande Vallée series --bursting with vibrant, energizing hues. But she doesn’t paint the valley’s flowers and meadows. She paints a feeling about them--abundance, freedom, liveliness--creating a harmonious blend of drips, splashes, and brushstrokes in rainbow colors. When the paint dries, it’s time to share her valley with the world.

This inspiring, poetic picture book about an influential yet lesser-known American artist provides a snapshot of a creator who deserves as much acclaim as better-known Abstract Expressionists like Jackson Pollock or Willem de Kooning. Author Lisa Rogers shares both the despair and delight Mitchell experienced throughout her career, while acclaimed illustrator Stacy Innerst’s bright artwork captures the movement and energy of Mitchell’s work, as her paintings develop from page to page.

Lisa Rogers is a former elementary school librarian. She is the author of Beautiful Noise, illustrated by Il Sung Na, which received three starred reviews, and 16 Words: William Carlos Williams and ＂The Red Wheelbarrow,＂ illustrated by Chuck Groenink, which won the Boston Authors Club Julia Ward Howe Award and the Susan P. Bloom Discovery Award, and was a Bank Street Best Book and a Crystal Kite Award finalist. She is also the author of Hound Won’t Go, a Massachusetts Must-Read, and the co-author of Discover Her Art.

Stacy Innerst is a painter, children’s book artist, and educator. His books have been honored with the Sydney Taylor Award for The Book Rescuer: How a Mensch from Massachusetts Saved Yiddish Literature for Generations to Come, the New York Times/New York Public Library Best Illustrated Children’s Books Award for Ruth Bader Ginsburg: The Case of RBG vs. Inequality, the SCBWI Golden Kite for Picture Book Illustration for The Music in George’s Head.