Mitchell, Joan (1926– )

US painter. One of the early abstract expressionists, Mitchell gained considerable recognition when she arrived in New York in 1947.

Born in Chicago, the child of a physician father and a mother who was a poet and coeditor of Poetry magazine, she studied for two years at Smith College, then transferred to the Art Institute of Chicago to paint full time. In 1959 she moved to Paris, then in 1967 to Vetheuil, a village about one hour northwest of Paris where Monet once lived (1878–81). She continued to paint in the abstract expressionist manner, although adopting a sunnier palette and more lyrical mode, and in her attempts to convey the realm of nature – as in No Birds (1987–88) or Wind (1990) – she seemed to echo French Impressionism.