JOAN MITCHELL RETROSPECTIVE

BALTIMORE MUSEUM OF ART PRESENTS JOAN MITCHELL RETROSPECTIVE
Featuring 70 Artworks and Rarely Seen Archival Materials

From March 6 through August 14, 2022, the Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) presents Joan Mitchell, the long-awaited retrospective of the internationally renowned artist who attained critical acclaim and success in the male-dominated art circles of 1950s New York, then spent nearly four decades in France creating breathtaking abstract paintings that evoke landscapes, memories, poetry, and music.

This comprehensive exhibition features 70 works spanning the artist’s career, including rarely seen early paintings and drawings, vibrant gestural paintings that established her reputation in New York, and enormous multi-panel masterpieces from her later years that immerse viewers with their symphonic color. Numerous loans from public and private collections in the U.S. and Europe include works that have not been shown publicly in decades and never in a single exhibition.

The BMA’s presentation also includes many archival photographs, letters, poems, and other materials from the Joan Mitchell Foundation, providing additional context about the development of the artist’s work and influences. The BMA is the only East Coast venue for Joan Mitchell.

The exhibition also examines the essential role of music and poetry in Mitchell’s work. Immersed in culture from childhood, Mitchell’s personal and collaborative relationships with writers and musicians in both the U.S. and France are key to her story. As her artistic style developed, the sometimes ambiguous and often personal nature of lyrics, lines of poetry, and musical compositions dovetailed with painting’s capacity to express what cannot be named or explained. Two multi-panel paintings, Ode to Joy (A Poem by Frank O’Hara) (1970-71) and La Vie en Rose (1979), demonstrate the relationships between Mitchell’s passion for the arts across its many disciplines and the way it propelled her practice.

The BMA’s exhibition emphasizes this with an immersive soundscape featuring quotes taken from Mitchell’s writing and interviews voiced by actor Nadine Malouf, literature significant to the artist read by poet Eileen Myles, and music dear to Mitchell, from jazz standards to opera. The experience is optimized for headphones in the gallery and accessible for visitors through an app on their mobile device or a player borrowed from the museum.

Tickets available through artbma.org. Prices are $15 for adults, $13 for seniors, $12 for groups of 7 or more, $5 for students with ID, and $5 for youth ages 7-18. BMA Members, children ages 6 and under, and student groups are admitted free. For more information, call 443-573-1701.

The BMA is open Wednesday through Sunday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and on Thursdays to 9 p.m. beginning March 10. Timed reservations, face masks, and answering two questions about COVID-19 exposure are required for all visitors. The BMA is located at 10 Art Museum Drive, three miles north of Baltimore’s Inner Harbor.
photo: Joan Mitchell. La Vie en Rose. 1979. Lent by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Anonymous Gift and Purchase, George A. Hearn Fund, by exchange, 1991 (1991.139a-d). © Estate of Joan Mitchell.