Mitchell, Joan

▪ American painter

born Feb. 12, 1926, Chicago, Ill., U.S.

died Oct. 30, 1992, Paris, Fr.

      American painter who was a member of the second generation of Abstract Expressionists.

      Mitchell attended Smith College (1942–44), Northampton, Mass., U.S., and then studied at the Art Institute of Chicago, receiving a bachelor of fine arts degree (1947) and, after scholarship study in France, a master of fine arts degree (1950). In the early 1950s she studied art briefly at Columbia University and New York University and gained membership in the Eighth Street Club, or The Club, founded by the Abstract Expressionists of the New York school.

      In the 1950s she painted heroic-sized slashes of lines—sometimes calligraphic—in vivid colours. She visited France regularly and in 1959 set up a studio in Paris, later moving to the country village of Vétheuil. During the 1960s she added to her linear images various clusters or blocks of colours. Her canvases were generally huge, some extending as much as 20 feet (8 m) or more and some divided into panels to be viewed sequentially. Though completely abstract, her paintings evoke associations of landscapes, foliage, and flowers, and her lavish brushwork has a quality of robust and tumultuous lyricism.

* * *