Joan Mitchell (1925-1992) was an abstract expressionist painter, known for her animated and dynamic brushstrokes made up of bright, intense colors. She received many accolades over the course of her career and her art continues to be displayed in major public collections including at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the MOMA, and the Tate Gallery.
Joan Mitchell (1925-1992) was an abstract expressionist painter, known for her animated and dynamic brushstrokes made up of bright, intense colors. She received many accolades over the course of her career and her art continues to be displayed in major public collections including at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the MOMA, and the Tate Gallery.
History classes can get a bad wrap, and sometimes for good reason. When we were students, we couldn’t help wondering... where were all the ladies at? Why were so many incredible stories missing from the typical curriculum? Enter, Womanica. On this Wonder Media Network podcast we explore the lives of inspiring women in history you may not know about, but definitely should.
Every weekday, listeners explore the trials, tragedies, and triumphs of groundbreaking women throughout history who have dramatically shaped the world around us. In each 5 minute episode, we’ll dive into the story behind one woman listeners may or may not know–but definitely should. These diverse women from across space and time are grouped into easily accessible and engaging monthly themes like Educators, Villains, Indigenous Storytellers, Activists, and many more. Womanica is hosted by WMN co-founder and award-winning journalist Jenny Kaplan. The bite-sized episodes pack painstakingly researched content into fun, entertaining, and addictive daily adventures.
Womanica was created by Liz Kaplan and Jenny Kaplan, executive produced by Jenny Kaplan, and produced by Liz Smith, Grace Lynch, Maddy Foley, Brittany Martinez, Edie Allard, Lindsey Kratochwill, Sundus Hassan, Adesuwa Agbonile, Carmen Borca-Carrillo, Taylor Williamson, and Ale Tejeda. Special thanks to Shira Atkins.
We are offering free ad space on Wonder Media Network shows to organizations working towards social justice. For more information, please email Jenny at pod@wondermedianetwork.com.
Follow Wonder Media Network:
To take the Womanica listener survey, please visit: https://wondermedianetwork.com/survey
Hello! From Wonder Media Network, I’m Jenny Kaplan. This is Womanica.
This month, we’re talking about visionaries.
During a time when female artists struggled to achieve international recognition, today’s woman shined in a male-dominated milieu. Her style of abstract expressionism set her apart and earned her countless accolades. Please welcome Joan Mitchell.
Joan Mitchell was born in Chicago, Illinois on February 12, 1925, to James Herbert and Marion Strobel. She was the youngest of two daughters. James, a successful doctor and amateur painter, wanted a son. So much so that he accidentally wrote “John” on her birth certificate. James constantly belittled Joan, and his emotional abuse had a long-lasting impact on her. .
Although Joan did start painting at a young age in an effort to please her father, she was a multi-talented child. When she was 10, one of her poems, Autumn, was published in the literary journal where her mother, a talented poet, was an editor. Joan was also quite athletic. She competed in horseback riding, diving, and figure skating. She placed fourth in the Junior Women's Division of the U.S. Figure Skating Championships at the age of 17.
In 1943, Joan began studying English at Smith College in Massachusetts. Later that year, her alma mater hosted her first solo art exhibition. Joan transferred to the Art Institute of Chicago where she received her BFA in 1947.
After graduation, Joan went to France on the James Nelson Raymond Traveling Fellowship. When she returned to the U.S. in 1949, she married her high school sweetheart and publisher, Barney Rosset, and the two settled in New York. The marriage lasted 3 years before ending as a result of Joan’s affair with fellow artist, Michael Goldberg.
Beginning in the 1950s, Joan became active in the New York School of painters and poets. Her 1951 exhibition in the famous “9th Street Show” solidified her role as one of the leading young painters in the Abstract Expressionist movement. After her solo show at the New Gallery a year later , Joan’s career took off.
After a few years of splitting her time between New York and France, Joan permanently moved to France in 1959. This was in part due to her therapist's suggestion to remove herself from her social circle of heavy-drinking painters.
When it came to her art, Joan was known for her animated and dynamic brushstrokes made up of bright, intense colors. Her paintings have a frantic energy and include unplanned moments, like paint drips and rogue strokes. Joan was intentional about leaving paint chunky and her gestural strokes tended to cluster and create a vibrant mass in the center of the canvas. Because of this, Joan was referred to as a second-generation Abstract Expressionist as opposed to all-over abstractionists like Jackson Pollock and Franz Kline, who had no central images.
Major themes in her work were poetry, music, and nature. From Joan’s perspective, trees were symbolic of mortality and her loved ones. Joan kept her subject matter relatively ambiguous, only revealing it through the title.
Whether it was the New York skyline or the French countryside, Joan was always captured by her surroundings. Her landscape paintings - sometimes real, sometimes imagined - were lively and scenic. Many artists and critics have drawn comparisons between Joan’s style and Impressionism because of her approach to landscapes.
Despite being a dominant force in her field, Joan was not immune to the diminutive nature of being labeled a “woman artist”. She hated that she was considered in a separate category from her male colleagues. Nothing illustrates this more than when a man approached Joan and her friend Elaine de Kooning at a party and asked them what they thought about something as “women artists”. Joan turned to Elaine and said, “let’s get the hell out of here”.
But the number of famous galleries Joan appeared in was a true testament to her talent. Before her 40th birthday, Joan was featured in the Venice Biennale in Italy and Documenta in Kassel, Germany, and multiple solo shows at New York’s vaunted Stable Gallery.
In the late 1960s, Joan moved to a small town northwest of Paris. She began working on her renowned “Sunflower” series. In this series, Vincent Van Gogh’s influence is evident. Joan uses bright yellows and blues that she layers on thick and chunky. However, as she got older and experienced more loss, some of these canvases also featured hues of brown.
In 1988, Joan was the first artist to receive the Distinguished Artist Award for Lifetime Achievement from the College Art Association of America. She also received an honorary doctorate from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and was appointed Commandeur des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture.
Joan Mitchell died in Paris on October 30, 1992.
All month, we’re honoring incredible, artistic visionaries.
Special thanks to Liz Kaplan, my favorite sister and co-creator.
Talk to you tomorrow!