Looking Back at 2025: Celebrating Joan Mitchell and Her Impact

As we close out 2025 and Joan Mitchell’s Centennial celebration, we’re reflecting on the rich opportunities this milestone year has presented for us to deeply explore Mitchell’s life and work, while also planting seeds for the future. Throughout this year, we have admittedly also grappled with the question of what it even means to celebrate at this time, amidst the backdrop of the current political climate and art market uncertainty—both of which we know are profoundly impacting artists. Yet, again and again, as we have shared Mitchell’s work, we at the Foundation have heard from artists and audiences that her art can be a balm and a catalyst in troubling times. Over the course of the year, we have grown to understand the radical importance of spreading joy and supporting freedom of expression through our work with artists. We are proud and privileged to be able to stand true to our values in a time when it is difficult for many institutions to do so.

As you will see in the photos below, sharing highlights of the year, we celebrated Mitchell with events in Paris, New York, Chicago, and New Orleans—all cities that were important to her life or to the Foundation’s work. The programming focused on fostering new scholarship on Mitchell, forging partnerships with organizations in France, and making connections between Mitchell and living artists. An important anchor for this year of focus on Mitchell was a scholarly symposium hosted in partnership with the Art Institute of Chicago, which included a public keynote presentation and a day of panels with leading scholars and artists. Additionally, we are grateful to the more than 70 museums globally that presented Joan Mitchell works in their collections in honor of her centennial.

A significant aspect of the centennial celebration has been furthering Mitchell’s mandate of support to artists. In May, we presented Creating Future Memory, a major field-wide convening on the subject of artists’ legacies, with support from the Mellon Foundation. The gathering was timely in fostering conversation around who gets to be remembered and the needs of the ecosystem surrounding artist legacy support. We are currently working on a report to the field on the convening and our learnings, which we look forward to sharing in 2026. Additionally, in August we gathered at the Joan Mitchell Center in New Orleans to celebrate the 10-year anniversary of the residency campus through an exhibition of work by more than 40 of the 300+ artists who have participated in the residency program.

Alongside the centennial celebration, we continued our mission work through the Joan Mitchell Fellowship, residencies at the Joan Mitchell Center, and support for research and exhibitions related to Joan Mitchell. Going into 2026, we will be taking time for strategic planning, to map our priorities for the next five years. We look forward to sharing the outcomes of that planning process with the field by the end of 2026.

Finally, and most importantly, we want to express sincere gratitude to all of our partners, artists, and colleagues who contributed to Mitchell’s centennial celebration, including the kickoff at the Centre Pompidou, the exhibition at the Joan Mitchell Center, the Joan Mitchell Centennial Symposium at the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Creating Future Memory convening. Thank you to the amazing team at the Foundation and Center who made this year’s centennial celebration happen while still continuing all of our ongoing programs and commitments. See below for all the highlights of the year.

Wishing you happy holidays and a happy new year,

Christa Blatchford
Executive Director

Sandy S. Lee
Board Co-President

Paul Ramírez Jonas
Board Co-President

On Mitchell’s birthday (February 12), we kicked off the centennial celebration with an event at the Centre Pompidou in Paris—rooting the celebration in Mitchell’s adopted home of France. The program included an operatic performance, a poetry reading, and the announcement of new programmatic partnerships between the Foundation and institutions in France, including AWARE and Villa Albertine. Read more.

Concurrently in New York, from February 12–15, the College Art Association honored Joan Mitchell at the CAA 113th Annual Conference with a conservator-led gallery tour of Mitchell’s works at MoMA and during the Annual Artist Interviews, which featured Wendy Red Star and Martha Rosler. Read more.

Beginning in March and continuing throughout Mitchell’s centennial year, Mara Hoberman, Senior Researcher for the Joan Mitchell Catalogue Raisonné, presented a series of lectures at museums in France on Mitchell’s sunflower works, with talks at Franco-American Institute, Rennes; the Royal Monastery of Brou, Bourg-en-Bresse; Musée de Grenoble; Musée des Impressionnismes, Giverny; Musée d’Arts de Nantes; and Musée des Beaux Arts de Caen.

In May, we presented Creating Future Memory, a major field-wide convening on the subject of artists’ legacies, with support from the Mellon Foundation. This convening was the culmination of a year-long investigation into the current state of legacy stewardship, with the goal of mapping the field and galvanizing the arts ecosystem to dedicate more support to this critical area of work. Stay tuned to a report to the field in 2026. Read more.

Now in its fifth year, the Joan Mitchell Fellowship continues the Foundation’s longstanding commitment to unrestricted artist support, recognizing artists working in the expanded fields of painting and sculpture with multi-year funding coupled with skills development and community building offerings. In June, we gathered the 2023 and 2024 cohorts of Joan Mitchell Fellows for the annual Fellowship Convening, which took place this year in New York. Read more.

For the month of August, an exhibition at the Joan Mitchell Center in New Orleans celebrated Mitchell’s impact on the community of artists who have been in residence at the Center over the past 10 years. The exhibition, curated by former Artists-in-Residence Nyeema Morgan and Josiah Gagosian, illuminated how the Center’s program continues Mitchell’s legacy of support for artists’ practices. Read more.

In mid August, we announced the 2025 cohort of Joan Mitchell Fellows—marking the fifth cohort of artists to join the Fellowship program since it was launched in 2021. The 15 artists, who hail from 11 states and range in age from 30 to 74, will each receive $60,000 in direct funding, distributed over five years alongside professional development, peer engagement, and network-building programs. Read more.

Throughout the year, the Joan Mitchell Center hosted 33 artists over three seasons, including past grant recipients from California, North Carolina, Indianapolis, Puerto Rico, and other locations, who worked alongside 15 artists local to New Orleans. We produced video interviews with each of the Artists-in-Residence, which can be found on our website in the Journal section.

On October 1, AWARE: Archives of Women Artists, Research & Exhibitions and the Joan Mitchell Foundation brought leading scholars and curators together in Paris to explore Mitchell’s relationship to the second-wave feminist movement. A full recording of the panel discussion (conducted in English) is now available, featuring presentations by Cora Chalaby, Flavia Frigeri, Julia Marchand, and Grazina Subelyte. Watch the recording.

From October 23-24, the Foundation partnered with the Art Institute of Chicago to present a scholarly symposium on Mitchell, which included a public keynote event on Mitchell’s work and a day of scholarly panels. Read more.

The centennial celebration concludes with the current exhibition at David Zwirner New York, Joan Mitchell: To define a feeling, 1960-65, curated by the Foundation’s own Sarah Roberts and focusing on a pivotal time in Mitchell’s practice. This body of work, referred to as the Black Paintings, deeply demonstrates Mitchell’s fierce commitment to her practice and innovation. Read more.