Joan Mitchell Foundation, New York, United States
January 9, 2025
The Joan Mitchell Foundation has announced its plans to mark the centennial of the renowned artist, who was born February 12, 1925, and whose impact on the art world continues to resonate over 30 years after her death in 1992.
The Foundation will commemorate Mitchell’s centennial throughout 2025 with a robust series of programs and events—anchored by presentations of her work in museums around the world—in collaboration with museum partners in the United States and France, where Mitchell lived for much of her life. The Foundation also will significantly expand the information about Mitchell’s life and creative context made available through its own website and social media, including digitally releasing a documentary film on Mitchell that has been unavailable for many years. Together, these activities will give a wide range of audiences an opportunity to experience her work and learn more about her life, career, and enduring influence.
“The centennial is an important occasion both to honor Joan Mitchell’s creative process and remarkable contributions to abstract painting, and to foster a deeper understanding of her lasting legacy and, especially, her support for other artists,” said Christa Blatchford, Executive Director of the Joan Mitchell Foundation. “Throughout the centennial year programs, we will be highlighting Mitchell’s vital role in art history, which continues to inspire new interpretations, contrasts, and points of comparison that underscore her unique vision. At the same time, this year of programming and related announcements will spotlight the artists and communities whose work and creativity Mitchell generously supported during her lifetime and, through this Foundation, after her death.”
More than 70 museums across the United States, France, and Australia will display nearly 100 works by Mitchell over the course of the year. Among the 52 museums in the U.S., presentations range from major art museums like the Art Institute of Chicago (exhibiting City Landscape, 1955), the Whitney Museum of American Art (showcasing Hemlock, 1956); the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, DC (exhibiting Cercando un Ago, 1959); and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (with two works on view, including Bracket, 1989); to important regional institutions such as the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh and the Birmingham Museum of Art in Alabama, and academic museums like the Colby College Museum of Art in Maine and the Blanton Museum of Art in Austin, TX.
In Europe, more than a dozen institutions, including both prominent and regional museums, are joining the celebration, from the Centre Pompidou in Paris, to the Musée des Impressionnismes Giverny, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Lisbon. Additionally, in Australia, the National Gallery of Australia and the National Gallery of Victoria will both have Mitchell works on view. A full list and interactive map of participating institutions is available on the Foundation’s website and will be updated regularly.
Added Blatchford, “After recent major traveling exhibitions of Mitchell’s work, the centennial is an opportunity to think differently about how to make the artist’s works widely available. We decided to emphasize the array of Mitchell’s paintings that have found homes in diverse communities across the U.S. and around the world, encouraging the presentation of these works by the collecting institutions. The impact of seeing Mitchell’s work in person is truly transformative—in terms of the emotional resonance and appreciating the scale, colors, and brushwork—and we are thrilled that people in so many communities will have the opportunity to do so in 2025 through their hometown museums.”
To support these efforts, the Foundation has awarded conservation grants to 11 American institutions, totaling about $70,000, to address essential preservation needs that will help ensure these Mitchell works remain accessible to the public now and in the future. This includes a grant to Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, to support conservation work on Tournesols (1976) and to the Castellani Art Museum in Niagara University, NY, to assist in conservation of an important large-scale canvas from 1982 titled Begonia.
For a full calendar of events and activities celebrating Joan Mitchell in 2025, visit joanmitchellfoundation.org.