Baltimore Museum Of Art Celebrates Women With Joan Mitchell & 'All Due Respect' Exhibits
BALTIMORE (WJZ) -- In honor of Women's History Month, WJZ is giving you an inside look at the newest exhibits adorning the walls of our iconic Baltimore Museum of Art.
One of the exhibits, "All Due Respect," is unique to Baltimore, spotlighting and supporting our local artists.
"Her name [Joan] Mitchell should be like Matisse or Monet," says Katy Siegel, the BMA's senior curator.
Siegel, part of the team responsible for putting Mitchell's work front and center, said the museum views every month as Women's History Month, just like every month is Black History Month.
It took a hardworking team of seven curation experts four years to comb through at least 600 of Mitchell's paintings to piece together this wordless tale of 70 found at the BMA exhibit.
"We wanted to work with a woman artist who was inarguably one of the great artists of the 20th century, but just has been pushed aside a little bit," Siegel said.
But perhaps most precious and celebrated of all is Mitchell's purpose—born from her death. Her will left thoughtful instruction to champion other artists.
"People should also know her for her dedication to artists and her generosity to artists," said Christa Blatchford, executive director of the Joan Mitchell Foundation.
So far, Mitchell's namesake foundation has honored her wishes. It has remarkably invested more than $18 million in grants and supplies for more 1,100 artists. But that's not all.
"We recognize that Joan Mitchell as a woman artist herself experienced discrimination during her lifetime and the work that we have done is very much about pulling forward artists who may be under recognized," Blatchford said.
The foundation is for an artist, by an artist.
"This is not a story about bad boyfriends and exotic vacations," Siegel said. "It has all of that for sure. But it is [about] someone who put painting first, which is a rare privilege and rare for a woman artist."
Visit the Joan Mitchell Exhibit from March 6 through Aug. 14 and All Due Respect from now until April 3.
