Fall colours are filling our classrooms this week as we are inspired by the incredible artist, Joan Mitchell.
“Sometimes I don’t know exactly what I want [with a painting]. I check it out, recheck it for days or weeks. Sometimes there is more to do on it. Sometimes I am afraid of ruining what I have. Sometimes I am lazy, I don’t finish it or I don’t push it far enough. Sometimes I think it’s a painting.” – Joan Mitchell
Mitchell was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1925 and was the daughter of a dermatologist and poet.
She enjoyed diving and skating growing up, and her art would later reflect this athleticism; one gallery owner commented that Mitchell “approached painting almost like a competitive sport”.
Mitchell frequently attended Saturday art classes at the Art Institute and eventually would spend her summers in a Chicago Art Institute run art colony, Ox-Bow.
Mitchell studied at Smith College in Massachusetts and The Art Institute of Chicago, where she earned her BFA in 1947 and her MFA in 1950.
Mitchell attended only one class at Hans Hoffman in NYC and declared, “I couldn’t understand a word he said so I left, terrified.” A $2,000 travel fellowship allowed her to study in Paris and Provence in 1948—49, and she also traveled in Spain and Italy.
Her paintings are expansive, often covering multiple panels. Landscape was the primary influence on her subject matter. She painted on unprimed canvas or white ground with gestural, sometimes violent brushwork. She has described a painting as “an organism that turns in space”.
Mitchell is recognized as a principal figure—and one of the few female artists—in the second generation of American Abstract Expressionists.
Already during her lifetime, Mitchell was rewarded with a considerable degree of commercial success. Between 1960 and 1962, Mitchell earned over $30,000 in art sales, a considerable figure for a woman painter at that time. In 2007, the Art Institute of Chicago sold Ste. Hilaire, 1957] at Christies New York for $3.8 million. Works by Mitchell fetched $239.8 million in sales from 1985 through 2013, according to figures compiled by Bloomberg.
Established in 1993 as a not-for-profit corporation, the Joan Mitchell Foundation awards grants and stipends to painters, sculptors, and artist collectives.
Joan Mitchell passed away in 1992.
Two Pianos, 1979 inspired our pieces.