City Landscape

City Landscape
City Landscape, in 2025 at Art Institute of Chicago
ArtistJoan Mitchell
Year1955
MediumOil on linen
Dimensions203.2 cm × 203.2 cm (80 in × 80 in)
LocationArt Institute of Chicago, Chicago
Accession1958.193
Websitewww.artic.edu/artworks/86385/city-landscape

City Landscape is the title given to multiple similar paintings by 20th-century American Abstract Expressionist painter Joan Mitchell. The most prominent version is an 80 in × 80 in (203.2 cm × 203.2 cm) work that has been held by the Art Institute of Chicago since 1958 where it has been regularly on display and frequently lent on exhibition. In 2024, Rockefeller University sold off a 1955 64.5 in × 73.5 in (163.8 cm × 186.7 cm) work by the same title that it had held since 1958 with minimal viewership. It is believed that several works by Mitchell have been named by this title and she produced a lot of art of a similar style during the mid 1950s.

Between 2021 and 2024, some of Mitchell's works had sold in the $18–$20 million range at art fairs; and in the year prior to Rockefeller's auction listing, some of Mitchell's works had sold at well over $20 million dollars at auction. Rockefeller University received just over $17 million for City Landscape at auction.

Background

Mitchell was born and raised in Chicago and graduated from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago before settling in New York City.[1] At the 1950 Whitney Museum Annual, Mitchell saw her first Willem de Kooning.[2] Mitchell became a part of the abstract expressionism movement and pursued art with emotion-filled coloration.[1] In 1955, Mitchell was split her time between Paris and New York City.[3]

When the Rockefeller version was auctioned in 2024, Christie's stated that at least three 1955 works from Mitchell bear this title.[4] When the Chicago version toured on exhibition in 2021, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art confirmed that Mitchell titled several 1950s works thusly.[5]

Chicago version

Joan Mitchell's yearbook photo from circa 1942
Joan Mitchell, c. 1942

The work was first exhibited by the Walker Art Center from October 23–December 5, 1955. The Art Institute acquired the 80 in × 80 in (203.2 cm × 203.2 cm) oil on linen work in 1958 from the Stable Gallery. The Art Institute included it in four of their own exhibitions between 1958 and 1968. Then, it exhibited at Corcoran Gallery of Art, February 27–May 1, 1988; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, May 26–July 17, 1988; Albright-Knox Art Gallery, September 17–November 6, 1988; La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art, December 2, 1988–January 29, 1989; Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, February 26–April 23, 1989.[6] This was regarded as a major retrospective exhibition.[7]

City Landscape exhibited at Whitney Museum of American Art, June 20–September 29, 2002; Birmingham Museum of Art, June 27–August 31, 2003; Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, September 21, 2003–January 7, 2004.[6] This tour, entitled The Paintings of Joan Mitchell, was a retrospective survey.[8] The tour was scheduled to continue at The Phillips Collection from February 14 to May 16, 2004.[9] When final tour stop was changed to Des Moines Art Center, January 31–April 25, 2004, City Landscape was not included.[6]

It also exhibited at San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, (Delayed to September 4, 2021-January 17, 2022 due to COVID-19 pandemic); Baltimore Museum of Art, (Delayed to March 6-August 14, 2022); Fondation Louis Vuiton, (Delayed to October 5, 2022-February 27, 2023); Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, (Venue cancelled).[6]

City Landscape is praised for the orchestration of "ragged swipes of hot pink and red with licks of blue, green, ocher, and black" and "the complex ways she built up layers of marks, dripping lines, and vast swatches of color to create a vibrant interwoven visual space".[10] The work is considered to be landscape-derived meandering work with a "hovering central mass" that is compared stylistically to Hudson River Day Line (1955).[9] In a review of her 59-piece 2002 Whitney Exhibition and its published catalog, entitled The Paintings of Joan Mitchell, Joan Marter notes that the "fundamental centripetalism" of these two pieces presented an early sign that even as an abstract expressionist painter, Mitchell used Figure–ground convention in order for "the sides and edges of the canvas to support internal activity as though acting like sky around clouds."[11] According to James Cuno, the bundle of pink, scarlet, mustard, sienna and black central pigments represents the pathways of a city.[1]

This the work often associated with Mitchell. When Margaret Randall reviewed "Ninth Street Women: Lee Krasner, Elaine de Kooning, Grace Hartigan, Joan Mitchell, and Helen Frankenthaler: Five Painters and the Movement That Changed Modern Art" for The Women's Review of Books, City Landscape was the work that they chose to represent Mitchell as the example of her work.[12] This version was included in Cuno's book, Master Paintings: In the Art Institure of Chicago.[1]

Rockefeller version

The Rockefeller University version of City Landscape

The work exhibited in Carnegie Institute, October-December 1955. Then it exhibited at North Carolina Museum of Art March-April 1957. Rockefeller Univeristy acquired the 64.5 in × 73.5 in (163.8 cm × 186.7 cm) oil on canvas work in 1958 at the Stable Gallery.[4] City Landscape hung for a long time in the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Dining Room next to Franz Kline's Luzerne where it had been inaccessible to almost anyone but campus staff, visitors, and leading scientists.[13][3] After being exhibited in 1955 and 1957, and then acquired in 1958, it never left campus.[4][13] Before auction the work had hung in Theobald Smith Hall.[3]

By the mid 2010s Mitchell's paintings began to sell at auctions and art fairs for very high prices. In 2014, an untitled Mitchell's 1960 abstract painting sold for $11.9 million, to establish a record auction price for an artwork by a female artist.[14][15][16] In 2018, Blueberry (1969) established a record for a Mitchell work at auction when it sold for $16.9 million at Christie's New York.[17]

In May 2021, Mitchell’s painting 12 Hawks at 3 O’Clock (ca. 1962) sold for a record $20 million at Art Basel Hong Kong.[18] In 2023, Untitled (c. 1959) sold at Christie's for $29.16 million on November 9 and Sunflowers (1990–91) sold at Sotheby's for $27.9 million on November 16, marking the first two works from the artist to sell at auction at over $20 million.[19][20][21] In May 2024, Noon (c. 1969) realized an auction result of $22.6 million at Sotheby's.[19][22] In June 2024, a work titled Sunflowers (1990–91) sold at Art Basel in the $18–$20 million range,[23] but this was not the 2023 Sotheby sale work.[24]

Although Rockefeller University had a $2.5 billion endowment and a recently completed $777 million funding campaign, the benefits of the monetary value of the painting outweighed its value as a rarely seen painting.[13] Rockefeller University is very prestigious biomedical research center whose professors consistently perform leading edge research against diseases that has been recognized with the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, Lasker Awards (considered the American Nobel), and the National Medal of Science. Art sale proceeds at Rockefeller University would be expected to produce great benefits to society.[3] In 1977, when the University sold Jacques-Louis David's painting Portrait of Antoine and Marie-Anne Lavoisier (1788) for $4 million ($20.8 million in 2024) to Charles Wrightsman, who later donated it to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the proceeds funded two professorships and four graduate fellowships.[13] The first two professorship recipients were Maclyn McCarty and Norton Zinder.[25] City Landscape was estimated to sell in the $15 million to $20 million range and eventually sold for $17,085,000 at Christies on November 19, 2024.[4] Rockefeller also sold a second Joan Mitchell in that auction (Untitled, 1955) for $9,380,000.[26][27]

Its 2024 auction lot essay groups it in with 1955 works Hudson River Day Line in the McNay Art Museum collection and The Lake at Shizuoka Prefectural Museum of Art as well as the Chicago version for leading Mitchell works from that era.[4]

Reviews

The work is said to present the "excitement and freedom" of a her jet set life of leisure.[3] The work is lauded for its painterly use of a variety gestures and marks to demonstrate colourist skills.[3]

Notes

  1. ^ a b c d Cuno 2009, p. 151.
  2. ^ Solomon, Deborah (November 24, 1991). "In Monet's Light". The New York Times. Archived from the original on March 10, 2022. Retrieved August 4, 2025.
  3. ^ a b c d e f "Where art meets science: two paintings by Joan Mitchell exemplify The Rockefeller University's pioneering vision". Christie's. October 30, 2024. Retrieved August 3, 2025.
  4. ^ a b c d e Kaplan, Emily (November 19, 2024). "The Rockefeller Mitchells: Science for the Benefit of Humanity". Christie's. Retrieved August 3, 2025.
  5. ^ "Quick Looks: 8 Vibrant Paintings in Joan Mitchell". San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. August 2021. Retrieved August 3, 2025.
  6. ^ a b c d "City Landscape". Art Institute of Chicago. 2025. Retrieved August 3, 2025.
  7. ^ Albers, Patricia (2011). Joan Mitchell: Lady Painter. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN 9780375414374. Archived from the original on June 12, 2018. Retrieved December 26, 2019.
  8. ^ Kertess, Klaus (June 16, 2002). "Her Passion Was Abstract but No Less Combustible". The New York Times. Archived from the original on November 14, 2013. Retrieved November 23, 2012.
  9. ^ a b Kernan, Nathan (September 2002). "Joan Mitchell. New York". The Burlington Magazine. 144 (1194). Burlington Magazine Publications Ltd.: 578–581. JSTOR 889539. Retrieved August 10, 2025.
  10. ^ "Quick Looks: 8 Vibrant Paintings in Joan Mitchell". San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. August 2021. Retrieved August 10, 2025.
  11. ^ Marter, Joan (Spring–Summer 2004). "Untitled". Woman's Art Journal. 25 (1). Woman's Art Inc.: 56–59. JSTOR 3566505. Retrieved August 11, 2025.
  12. ^ Randall, Margaret (October 2018). "Not A Muse". The Women's Review of Books. 35 (5). Old City Publishing, Inc.: 18–20. JSTOR 26501115. Retrieved August 10, 2025.
  13. ^ a b c d Ho, Karen K. (October 31, 2024). "Christie's Will Auction Two Joan Mitchell Paintings from Rockefeller University Estimated at $32 M." ARTnews.com. Retrieved August 3, 2025.
  14. ^ "Sale 2847 Lot 32". Archived from the original on May 15, 2014. Retrieved May 14, 2014.
  15. ^ Crow, Kelly (May 14, 2014). "Christie's Art Sale Brings In Record $745 Million". Wall Street Journal.
  16. ^ Kazakina, Katya. "Billionaires Help Christie's to Record $745 Million Sale". Bloomberg News. Archived from the original on 14 May 2014.
  17. ^ Ho, Karen K. (October 31, 2024). "Christie's Will Auction Two Joan Mitchell Paintings from Rockefeller University Estimated at $32 M." ARTnews.com. Retrieved August 3, 2021.
  18. ^ Villa, Angelica (May 20, 2021). "$20 M. Joan Mitchell Painting Sells During Art Basel Hong Kong's Early Hours". ARTnews.com. Retrieved August 23, 2021.
  19. ^ a b Babbs, Verity (April 19, 2024). "Four Career-Defining Joan Mitchell Masterpieces Head to Auction". Artnet. Retrieved August 3, 2025.
  20. ^ Armstrong, Annie (November 8, 2023). "Which Joan Mitchell Would You Buy If You Had Upwards of $25 Million to Spend?". Artnet. Retrieved August 3, 2025.
  21. ^ Stanley, Jessica (November 10, 2023). "20th century evening sale totals $640,846,000 marquee week running total $748,297,800". Christie's. Retrieved August 2, 2025.
  22. ^ Watson, Olivia (May 17, 2024). "Leonora Carrington and Joan Mitchell Lead Exceptional Results for Women Artists". Sotheby's. Retrieved August 2, 2025.
  23. ^ Lauter, Devorah (June 11, 2024). "On Art Basel's First Day, Sales Roll In and the Art World Breathes a Sigh of Relief". ARTnews.com. Retrieved August 3, 2025.
  24. ^ "A Life of Beauty: The Collection of John Cheim". Sotheby's. 2023. Retrieved August 3, 2025.
  25. ^ "Lavoisier painting returns to Rockefeller". Rockefeller University. Retrieved August 10, 2025.
  26. ^ Kaplan, Emily (November 19, 2024). "The Rockefeller Mitchells: Science for the Benefit of Humanity". Christie's. Retrieved August 12, 2025.
  27. ^ Stanley, Jessica (October 30, 2024). "christie's presents the rockefeller mitchells science for the benefit of humanity". Christie's. Retrieved August 12, 2025.

Book sources

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