Joan Mitchell

Known for: large-scale Abstract Expressionist painting

Joan Mitchell studied in Paris and settled permanently in Vétheuil, France, in 1968, developing a large-scale Abstract Expressionist practice rooted in the American gestural tradition while remaining outside its New York institutional context for most of her career. Her paintings — dense, layered fields of brushwork that refer obliquely to landscape and sensation — received serious critical attention only in the last decade of her life. She left her estate to establish the Joan Mitchell Foundation, which has supported artists since 1993.