Joan Mitchell
Joan Mitchell was one of the few women to be a dominant force in America's abstract expressionist movement. Born in Chicago in 1925, Mitchell attended Smith College and received a degree from the Art Institute of Chicago in 1949. In the fifties, she lived in Greenwich Village and became part of the community of abstract painters, including Willem de Kooning and Franz Kline. Her paintings were defined by large color saturated canvases, with stark contrasts and complex images. In 1959, Mitchell moved to France, eventually living in a house connected to the one in which Monet had lived. Collections, including the Art Institute of Chicago, and monographs keep Mitchell's work in the context of her abstract colleagues. Mitchell died in France in 1992.
