• Biography
    View works. Joan Mitchell, Petit Matin, 1982
    Petit Matin, 1982
    View works
    Joan Mitchell (1925–1992) was an abstract artist whose exceptional career spanned more than four decades. She worked in a variety of mediums—including oil painting, pastel on paper, and printmaking—and is widely recognized as one of the most significant artists of the post-war era. Her approach to abstraction is distinguished for its physicality, daring use of color, and direct connections to her everyday experiences of landscape, people, poetry, music, and even her beloved dogs.
     

    Mitchell achieved significant critical and commercial success in her lifetime, exhibiting regularly in New York and Paris throughout her career. The Whitney Museum of American Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, The Museum of Modern Art, and other major institutions began collecting her paintings in the 1950s. The Whitney Museum mounted a significant exhibition of her work in 1974. In 1982, Mitchell became the first female American artist to have a solo exhibition at the Musee d'art moderne de la Ville de Paris. A retrospective exhibition, The Paintings of Joan Mitchell: Thirty-six Years of Natural Expres­sionism, toured the United States in 1988 and 1989, with stops at the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York; the La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art, La Jolla, California; and the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York.

     

    Mitchell’s major awards and accomplishments include: Le Grand Prix des Arts (Peinture) of the City of Paris (1991); the Award for Painting from the French Ministry of Culture (1989); the inaugural Distinguished Artist Award for Lifetime Achievement from the College Art Association of America (1988); Honorary Doctorates from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (1987) and The Western College, Oxford, Ohio (1971); and the Premio Lissone, Milan (1961).

     

    As an extension of her commitment to sustaining an environment of dedication and camaraderie among artists, Mitchell gave personal support to many young artists and writers who came to stay with her at her home in Vétheuil—sometimes for just one night, sometimes for an entire summer. Correspondence in her papers reveals that this belief in their creativity and potential often had a life-changing impact on those who spent time with her.

     

    Following a diagnosis with cancer in 1984 and a long period during which she continued to work despite her declining health, Mitchell died in Paris on October 30, 1992. Her generosity in her own lifetime continued after her death with the formation of the Joan Mitchell Foundation, called for in her will, with a mandate to create direct support programs for individual artists. In addition, the Foundation’s mission includes the promotion and preservation of her legacy, which includes her remarkable body of work, her papers (including correspondence and photographs), and other archival materials related to her life and work.

     

    This biography is sourced from the Joan Mitchell Foundation. 

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