Christa Blatchford
Sandy S. Lee
What resonated with me at the Fellows Convening—seeing the image of Joan Mitchell there, and then seeing the other Fellows—is how the vision and mission of one artist can go beyond their time. How they can contribute to community, to friendship, to the prospects of other artists long after they’re gone. I felt this as a validation of what I want, as far as working with communities and creating work that hopefully is there to make a difference in my own time, but also to be received beyond me. And not just through art making, but also how I live my life and how I contribute.”
RAHELEH FILSOOFI, 2023 JOAN MITCHELL FELLOW
In June, as we gathered in New Orleans with the Joan Mitchell Fellows for their annual convening, we heard from the Fellows how the turmoil and conflict in our world are leaving many feeling burned out, tired, over-extended, precarious. In our work at the Foundation, we see and truly believe that spaces of care, connection, and community are essential to nourishing us all and invigorating our capacity to envision a different future.
Through our work at the Joan Mitchell Center, our annual convening of the Fellows, and other virtual and in-person activities throughout the year, we strive to provide artists with this type of community and connection, with the hope that we are offering space to dream and set future priorities. We share Joan Mitchell Fellow Raheleh Filsoofi’s thoughts above because to us, the future Raheleh is conveying is now. Again and again, we hear from artists that Joan Mitchell’s care in establishing a Foundation to support other artists in turn inspires them to care for one another, for their futures, and for the futures of other artists. As we move towards 2025—a milestone year for the Foundation as we celebrate the centenary of Mitchell’s birth—our thinking is not only on the 100 years of Mitchell but also the next 100 years of artists.
Highlights of what we have accomplished within our artist programs in 2024 include the following:
The Joan Mitchell Center hosted 35 Artists-in-Residence and 8 visiting artists preparing for the Prospect.6 triennial, providing each artist with the time and space for focused work within a supportive creative community.
We selected 15 new Joan Mitchell Fellows—a diverse group of artists from throughout the US who work in the evolving fields of painting and sculpture. The 2024 Fellows bring us to 60 artists currently being supported through this five-year fellowship.
Throughout the year, current Fellows participated in virtual artist exchanges, fostering dialogue and peer support and covering topics ranging from negotiating artist fees to planning public art projects to balancing the demands of caregiving with art-making. Along with other past grant recipients, the Fellows were also invited to attend workshops to learn from experts in the field on legal matters, finances, and other key topics.
As shared above, we hosted the third Joan Mitchell Fellows Convening in New Orleans, bringing together artists from the 2022 and 2023 cohorts of Fellows. Attending artists and staff reflected on the Convening and the Fellowship program in this video.
In our ongoing “In the Studio” interview series, we shared insights into the creative processes and ideas behind the work of our recent AIRs and Fellows. This year, we published more than 50 interviews, which you can find on our website in the Journal.
On the Legacy side of the Foundation, we have been laying the groundwork for Mitchell’s centennial next year. The centennial provides a rich moment to broadly share Mitchell’s life and work, creating opportunities to reflect on Mitchell’s impact. We will be centering our in-person activities in Paris, New York, Chicago, and New Orleans—all locations that were important in Mitchell’s life or to the Foundation’s work.
We are especially committed to ensuring folks can see Mitchell’s work near where they live during the centennial, and with that in mind, have reached out to over 100 museums internationally that own Mitchell paintings. The response has been remarkable. We’ll be mapping all the artworks on view and announcing our events and programs for Mitchell’s centennial year in January.
In addition to the centennial planning activities, we’re reflecting on the following milestones from 2024:
In London, the Tate Modern dedicated two rooms to Mitchell, highlighting her late work. This grouping can be seen into February 2025.
The Foundation loaned two paintings to the Grey Art Museum’s extensive show Americans in Paris, which mapped the community of artists living and working in post-war Paris, including Mitchell. The touring exhibition is now at the Addison Gallery of American Art through January 5.
11 regional museums around the U.S. received grants from the Foundation to complete conservation treatments of Mitchell paintings, enabling the works to be on view in 2025. The conservators’ treatment approaches will be collected as a resource for the field.
Joan Mitchell: Paintings 1979–1985 was published by David Zwirner Books, with texts by author Julie Otsuka and artists Amy Sillman, Shinique Smith, and Lily Stockman.
The Joan Mitchell Catalogue Raisonné project made great strides in 2024, continuing research—including examining 81 paintings—and planning the timeline and format for the publication. The project team hosted and participated in gatherings for the catalogue raisonné community and increased the project's visibility in the wider field.
We are deeply grateful to the remarkable Foundation, Center, and Catalogue Raisonné teams that made all this happen. Each of the Foundation’s staff and board members brings so much knowledge, care, and commitment to our mission. This year, we welcomed several new and returning members to our team—including Christina Bogart, Alexandra Keiser, Lauren Galarza, Veronique LeMelle, Ted Martin, and Sarah Roberts—while bidding farewell to Toccara A.H. Thomas, Mauricio Mossi, and Patrick Conway. We also welcomed visual artist and former JMF Painters & Sculptors Grant recipient Chitra Ganesh to the board in January 2024, and look forward to welcoming Michele Brierre, a prior nonprofit executive, public health professional, and NOLA resident who officially joins the board in January 2025. At the end of this year, we will be sharing our thanks to Linda Usdin, who has served on our board for nine years and been a remarkable resource and constant presence at the Joan Mitchell Center and within our board’s work. Thanks to everyone for their hard work and commitment to Mitchell and artists.
As always, don’t hesitate to reach out with questions or updates. We wish you happy holidays and a peaceful new year.
