Celebrating Mitchell’s Centennial in 2025
Joan Mitchell was born February 12, 1925, and her impact on the art world continues to resonate over 30 years after her death in 1992. The Joan Mitchell 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 will also 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.
Highlights of the centennial programming currently scheduled are:
A major celebration will be held at the Centre Pompidou in Paris on February 12 (Mitchell’s birthday), including a program of music and poetry important to the artist and the announcement of new programmatic partnerships between the Foundation and institutions in France.
Also on February 12, the digital release of Marion Cajori’s 1992 film, Joan Mitchell: Portrait of an Abstract Painter, a recently remastered documentary that will be available to screen from the Foundation’s website, along with new narrative resources on the artist’s life, process, studio spaces, and key works.
February 12–15: The College Art Association will honor Joan Mitchell at the CAA 113th Annual Conference in New York via a conservator-led gallery tour of Mitchell’s works at MoMA and during the Annual Artist Interviews, which will feature Wendy Red Star and Martha Rosler. In 1988, Mitchell was the first recipient of the CAA Distinguished Artist Award for Lifetime Achievement.
Beginning in March, Mara Hoberman, Senior Researcher for the Joan Mitchell Catalogue Raisonné, will present a series of lectures at museums in France on Mitchell’s sunflower works, with talks currently scheduled at the Franco-American Institute, Rennes on March 4; the Royal Monastery of Brou, Bourg-en-Bresse on March 7; and the Musée de Grenoble on March 14.
In Spring 2025, Sarah Roberts, JMF’s Senior Director of Curatorial Affairs, will offer a three-part online class on Joan Mitchell via Roundtable by 92Y.
In May 2025, JMF will host an invitational convening on artists’ legacies in New York City, with support from the Mellon Foundation.
August 1-31, 2025: The Joan Mitchell Center in New Orleans will present an alumni exhibition, reflecting on the ten-year impact of the residency program as one aspect of Mitchell’s legacy.
October 23, 2025: A symposium on Mitchell at the Art Institute of Chicago will feature a public keynote event on Mitchell’s influence.
November 6 - December 13, 2025: An exhibition at David Zwirner’s Chelsea gallery in New York will explore Mitchell’s work from the mid-1960s.
This year will also see the publication of two books on Joan Mitchell, including:
- The first children’s book focusing on Mitchell: Joan Mitchell Paints a Symphony: La Grande Vallée Suite by Lisa Rogers, with illustrations by Stacy Innerst (Astra Publishing House, releasing February 25, 2025, English).
- Joan Mitchell et ses chiens / Joan Mitchell and her dogs, written by Laura Morris, Director of Archives and Research at the Joan Mitchell Foundation (Editions Norma, releasing Spring 2025, available in French and English).
Additional programs and events will be announced later this spring as they are confirmed, with listings available on the Foundation’s website at joanmitchellfoundation.org/mitchell100.
Joan Mitchell’s creative practice was deeply rooted in a continuous dialogue with the art and artists that came before her, as well as with her peers. From her lifelong study of Cézanne, Matisse, and Van Gogh, to her collaborations with contemporaries in New York and Paris, to her support of emerging artists and writers, Mitchell believed in the power of creative exchange. Through the Centennial year programs and new scholarship, we look forward to illuminating how Mitchell’s work continues to play a critical role in dialogues about abstract painting in both France and the US, from the 1950s to today.”
Sarah Roberts, Senior Director of Curatorial Affairs, Joan Mitchell Foundation