oil on canvas
81 x 100 cm (31 7/8 x 39 3/8 in.)
framed dimensions: 85 x 105 cm (33 1/2 x 41 3/8 in.)
signed lower right

PROVENANCE
Gift from the artist to Timothy "Tim" Osato (1925-1979), Chicago, in the early 1950s
Thence by descent
Private Collection, until 1979
Sotheby's New York, March 15, 2006, lot 5
Private Collection, New York

LOT NOTES
A gift from the artist to her lover and friend Tim Osato, Landscape #150 is an early Joan Mitchell work that can be traced to Mitchell's 1950s experiments with Cubism and different ways of thinking about space that would lead her to forming her unique style and gaining a reputation as one of the most prominent Abstract Expressionist painters.

Born in Chicago, Mitchell grew up taking classes at the Art Institute of Chicago (SIAC) where she got exposed to van Gogh, Renoir, Monet, Cezanne and decided to be a painter. She then received her BFA and MFA from SIAC and graduated with a travel award scholarship to France. In 1948 Mitchell moved to Paris to immerse herself in French Impressionist heritage that was so influential to her during her school years.

Upon her return to New York in 1950s she continued to experiment with the complexity of space, injecting her works with a spatial sensitivity and trying to work her way from abstracting reality to creating abstract imagery. In the introduction catalogue accompanying Mitchell's recent retrospective at SFMOMA, the Baltimore Museum of Art and Foundation Louis Vuitton (2021-2023), Sarah Roberts and Katy Siegel describe her process thusly: "She abstracted form, but stayed close to observe realities. She did not radically distort form or figures, nor did she portray them from multiple vantage points. Instead she stripped her figures and objects of specific features, paired them to physical and, increasingly, psychological essences, and sank them into webs of lines and planes, developing a complex spacial sensibility that would carry on the structure of her work for the rest of her life." (Joan Mitchell (New Heaven: San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Baltimore Museum of Art, Yale University Press, 2021), p. 24) We see this in Landscape #150, whose swathes of blue washes in the upper left quadrant, offset by the high-contrast black outlines are reminiscent of Chicago's undulating Lake Shore Drive as seen from above.

Mitchell achieved remarkable success in her lifetime, exhibiting regularly in New York and Paris. Her works are in collections of The Whitney Museum of American Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, The Museum of Modern Art, and other major institutions since the 1950s. Her works were the subject of a mid-career retrospective exhibition at the Whitney Museum in 1974. In 1982, Mitchell became the first female American artist to have a solo exhibition at the Musee d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris.

CONDITION
Observed in frame, the work is in very good condition, some minor rubbing along the perimeter of the canvas, a small area of paint loss middle right, minor surface craquelure, dust and soiling. UV light inspection showed a couple of minuscule spots that could have been potentially retouched.

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