Joan Mitchell Foundation
Joan Mitchell
Artist / Painter
Joan Mitchell was born in Chicago in 1925. After graduating from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1947, she was awarded a James Nelson Raymond Foreign Traveling Fellowship, which took her to France for a year in 1948-49, and it was there that her paintings moved toward abstraction. Returning to New York, she participated in the famous “9th Street Show” in 1951, and soon established a reputation as one of the leading younger American Abstract Expressionist painters. She exhibited regularly in New York throughout the next four decades and maintained close friendships with many New York School painters and poets.
In 1955 she began dividing her time between New York and France, and in 1968 she settled in Vétheuil, a small town in the countryside outside of Paris, where she worked continuously until her death in 1992. During the almost 50 years of her painting life, as Abstract Expressionism was eclipsed by successive styles, Mitchell’s commitment to the tenets of gestural abstraction remained firm and uncompromising. Summing up her achievement, Klaus Kertess wrote, “She transformed the gestural painterliness of Abstract Expressionism into a vocabulary so completely her own that it could become ours as well. And her total absorption of the lessons of Matisse and van Gogh led to a mastery of color inseparable from the movement of light and paint. Her ability to reflect the flow of her consciousness in that of nature, and in paint, is all but unparalleled.”
Mitchell gave personal support to many young artists who came to stay with her at Vétheuil – sometimes for just one night; sometimes for an entire summer. Correspondence in her papers reveals that this generosity often had a life-changing impact on those that spent time with her. Her generosity in her own lifetime continued after her death with the formation of the Joan Mitchell Foundation, called for in her will in order to create support and recognition for individual artists. In addition, the Foundation 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.
Joan Mitchell
Artist / Painter
Joan Mitchell was born in Chicago in 1925. After graduating from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1947, she was awarded a James Nelson Raymond Foreign Traveling Fellowship, which took her to France for a year in 1948-49, and it was there that her paintings moved toward abstraction. Returning to New York, she participated in the famous “9th Street Show” in 1951, and soon established a reputation as one of the leading younger American Abstract Expressionist painters. She exhibited regularly in New York throughout the next four decades and maintained close friendships with many New York School painters and poets.
In 1955 she began dividing her time between New York and France, and in 1968 she settled in Vétheuil, a small town in the countryside outside of Paris, where she worked continuously until her death in 1992. During the almost 50 years of her painting life, as Abstract Expressionism was eclipsed by successive styles, Mitchell’s commitment to the tenets of gestural abstraction remained firm and uncompromising. Summing up her achievement, Klaus Kertess wrote, “She transformed the gestural painterliness of Abstract Expressionism into a vocabulary so completely her own that it could become ours as well. And her total absorption of the lessons of Matisse and van Gogh led to a mastery of color inseparable from the movement of light and paint. Her ability to reflect the flow of her consciousness in that of nature, and in paint, is all but unparalleled.”
Mitchell gave personal support to many young artists who came to stay with her at Vétheuil – sometimes for just one night; sometimes for an entire summer. Correspondence in her papers reveals that this generosity often had a life-changing impact on those that spent time with her. Her generosity in her own lifetime continued after her death with the formation of the Joan Mitchell Foundation, called for in her will in order to create support and recognition for individual artists. In addition, the Foundation 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.
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Torkwase Dyson: A Liquid BelongingNov 11 – Dec 17, 2022Pace is pleased to present an exhibition of new site-specific sculptural installations and paintings by Torkwase Dyson, whose multidisciplinary practice spans painting, sculpture, performance, film, and drawing. (more…)
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Rencontres d’ArlesPhotography FestivalEvery summer since 1970, over the course of more than forty exhibitions at various of the city’s exceptional heritage sites, the Rencontres d’Arles has been a major influence in disseminating the best of world photography (more…)
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William EgglestonPhotographerWilliam Eggleston is one of the most influential photographers of the latter half of the 20th century, credited with pioneering fine art color photography in his iconic depictions of the American South. (more…)
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Lise SarfatiPhotographerBorn in 1958 in Oran, Algeria Lise Sarfati lives and works between Paris and Los Angeles and is represented by Yossi Milo Gallery, NY, Rose Gallery, LA, La Galerie Particulière, Paris. (more…)
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Afro / The Poetry of PaintingDec 2, 2022 – Feb 4, 2023With Afro – The Poetry of Painting, SETAREH presents the first solo exhibition of the Italian painter Afro Basaldella in Germany since he was represented with major work shows at the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin (more…)
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Joseph Beuys / 40 Years of DrawingJan 19 – Mar 22, 2023Presenting almost 100 works on paper from the Joseph Beuys Estate for the first time in the UK, Joseph Beuys: 40 Years of Drawing is the first major exhibition dedicated solely to the artist’s drawings to take place in London for 30 years. (more…)
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YesterdaySal Taylor KyddArtist and poet Sal Taylor Kydd announces the release of Yesterday, a limited edition artist book produced in conjunction with Datz Press, that explores the feelings of isolation and dislocation brought on by the pandemic (more…)
