BMA To Open Joan Mitchell Retrospective On March 6
BALTIMORE (WJZ) -- The Baltimore Museum of Art will open a retrospective of the work of Joan Mitchell, an abstract painter and member of the celebrated "New York School" of artists that also included Willem de Kooning, poet Frank O'Hara and Mark Rothko, next month, the museum said Tuesday.
The exhibition features 70 works from Mitchell's career, spanning her time in New York City during the 1950s to her nearly four decades in France. In addition to well-known paintings and multi-panel pieces, the collection of work includes rarely seen early paintings and drawings, as well as pieces that haven't been shown publicly in decades, the museum said.
Archival photographs, letters, poems, and other materials on loan from the Joan Mitchell Foundation will be on display as part of the show.
Katy Siegel, the BMA's senior programming and research curator, and Sarah Roberts, Andrew W. Mellon Curator of Painting and Sculpture at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, co-organized the exhibit.
"Across her life, Joan Mitchell experimented with how painting could embody physical experience and capture a wide range of emotions—including grief, sensual pleasure, humor, joy, and a kind of metaphysical soaring in the face of death—as well as connections to people and places," said Siegel. "Mitchell also grappled with conflict between the social roles prescribed by her gender and social status and her desire for true creative freedom. She was not simply 'making it' in an environment created and occupied by men, she was actively remaking painting and its possibilities."
After debuting in San Francisco last September, "Joan Mitchell" will be on display in Baltimore from March 6 to Aug. 14.
Starting March 10, the museum will extend its hours to 9 p.m. on Thursdays.
