you know, all the big museums in the world are showing joan mitchell. for women artists from the 20th century and from modernism. but, for me, in the �*90s, ijust thought i could... "no—one will take..." you know, "i can't, i can't..." my work was so sentimental and personal that there was no room for that in the �*90s, and there was definitely no room for painting. so i didn't paint. i wrote and i made all my fabric works, and i did lots of, you know, film, photography, writing. i even wrote for newspapers. you know, i did everything else but painting, really. and what changed it? what brought you back to painting? because i couldn't not paint. i had to paint. and then i was painting but not showing them. and then i started to show them, and then i represented britain in the venice biennale in 2007. and it was mostly drawing and painting that i showed. and then after that, i thought, "that's it, "i just want to paint." my friends got a really beautiful little drawing that you did of a bird — every time i go into her house, i'm so jealous cos it's just

you know, all the big museums in the world are showing joan mitchell.ssance for women artists from the 20th century and from modernism. but, for me, in the �*90s, ijust thought i could... "no—one will take..." you know, "i can't, i can't..." my work was so sentimental and personal that there was no room for that in the �*90s, and there was definitely no room for painting. so i didn't paint. i wrote and i made all my fabric works, and i did lots of, you know, film, photography, writing. i even wrote for newspapers. i... you know, i did everything else but painting, really. and what changed it? what brought you back to painting? because i couldn't not paint. i had to paint. and then i was painting but not showing them. and then i started to show them, and then i represented britain in the venice biennale in 2007. and it was mostly drawing and painting that i showed. and then after that, i thought, "that's it, ijust want to paint." my friends got a really beautiful little drawing that you did of a bird — every time i go into her house, i'm sojealous cos it

william anders, henri matisse, thomas eakins, george bellows, jacob lawrence, helen frankenthaler, joan mitchellinary collector. the photographs of his office in new york is paintings stacked all around him. >> in his very active years in '50s and '60s, he bought an average of two works a day. >> reporter: the director of the montreal museum of fine arts, he was previously chief curator of the hirshhorn and says that the man who amassed such a great collection was born in 1899, a jew from latvia who immigrated to new york at age 6 with his widowed mother. >> they lived in a tenement in brooklyn. they were very poor and struggling. >> reporter: but young joe found his way to wall street as an office boy and soon started putting small amounts of money into the market. >> by age 17, he was actually making serious money. >> yes, he made $168,000 a year. it amounts to $5 million today, which is enormous for a young man. >> reporter: hirshhorn went on to make a far bigger fortune speculating in gold, oil and youraneiam in canada. how way describe him as a person? >> dynamic, energetic. would speak ver