Joan Mitchell 1925-1992

Joan Mitchell was one of the leading artists of the New York School in the 1950s, as well as the most renowned female Abstract Expressionist of the 20^th century. She was raised in Chicago and attended the Art Institute of Chicago. Mitchell later moved to France, where she lived and worked until her death. She drew inspiration from artists as Vincent van Gogh, Paul Cézanne, Wassily Kandinsky, and showed alongside her contemporaries such as Franz Kline, Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollock, and Hans Hoffman. Mitchell is known for landscape and flower paintings and prints, which are recognizable through her aggressive brushstrokes, vivid color and expansive canvases.

After living in Paris for a short period of time, Mitchell moved to the town of Vétheuil, near Giverny, which was Claude Monet's idyllic home. Though she had a garden and a balcony looking over the countryside, she did most of her work at night in the company of her dogs. Mitchell once stated, "I paint from remembered landscapes that I carry with me - and remembered feelings of them, which of course become transformed. I could certainly never mirror nature. I would more like to paint what it leaves with me."

In 2012, Mitchell's Untitled (1971) sold for a record $7 million at Christie's in Paris. In 2014, she ranked highest in secondary market sales of any female artist in the world. Later that year, Untitled (1960-1965) sold for an impressive $11.9 million.

Mitchell's work is featured in the permanent collections of the MoMA, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C., the Tate Gallery in London, the Fondation Cartier pour l'Art Contemporain in Paris and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

Related Catergories: Abstract Expressionism, Action Painting, New York School, Post-War American Art, Large Brushstrokes/Loose Brushwork, Dynamism, Nature, Landscape, Line, Form and Color, United States.