A Large-Scale Joan Mitchell Retrospective to Open in Paris

Spanning ten galleries at the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris, Monet – Mitchell: Dialogue and Retrospective is a major exhibition showcasing Joan Mitchell’s work in dialogue with the paintings of Claude Monet. The show is divided into two parts: Monet – Mitchell presents each artist’s response to their shared landscape, and Joan Mitchell Retrospective presents monumental works spanning Mitchell’s career, a dozen of which are in the collection of the Fondation Louis Vuitton.

Both Mitchell and Monet lived along the banks of the Seine—in Vétheuil and nearby Giverny, respectively—for crucial periods of their lives, and both created work in response to this environment. For Monet, this resulted in his Water Lilies paintings, while Mitchell produced her signature abstract compositions, evoking memories and emotions associated with her cherished landscapes. Consisting of thirty-six works by Monet and twenty-four by Mitchell, Monet – Mitchell was organized in collaboration with Musée Marmottan Monet, which loaned twenty-five paintings by Monet for this presentation.

The exhibition also brings together two exceptional bodies of work: ten paintings from Joan Mitchell’s La Grande Vallée series (1983-84), brought together almost four decades after its fragmentary exhibition at the Galerie Jean Fournier in 1984, and Monet’s Agapanthus Triptych (ca. 1915–1926), which will be exhibited in its entirety for the first time in Paris. 

A new version of the Joan Mitchell Retrospective, previously shown at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) and currently on view at the Baltimore Museum of Art (BAM) through August 14, 2022, will be presented at the Fondation Louis Vuitton. The exhibition will include some fifty works from Mitchell’s oeuvre, including her polyptychs from the 1970s, her tribute to Vincent van Gogh, No Birds (1987–88), and her version of Cézanne’s Sainte-Victoire, South (1989), among others.

To learn more about the exhibition, visit Fondation Louis Vuitton.


Cover image: Joan Mitchell, La Grande Vallée, 1983 (detail). © The Estate of Joan Mitchell. © Primae / Louis Bourjac