Joan Mitchell was introduced to the visual arts, literature, and poetry by her mother, Marion Strobel Mitchell, co-editor of Poetry magazine. Mitchell attended weekend classes at the Art Institute of Chicago. At the Francis W. Parker School, she met her future husband, Barney Rosset; they married in 1949 and divorced in 1952, although they remained close friends. She graduated from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (B.F.A. 1947; M.F.A. 1950). After a brief stay in New York, she departed for Paris in the spring of 1948. She spent the following year painting in Paris and in Le Lavandou, in Provence.
Back in New York in late 1949, Mitchell became a commanding presence in the downtown art scene and was invited to participate in the Ninth Street Show 1951). Her imposing character suited the younger generation of women artists, who positioned themselves with the senior Abstract Expressionists while forming close associations with a group of poets, such as Frank O’Hara and John Ashbery, and painters, such as Grace Hartigan. Upon her return to Paris in the summer of 1955, she began a complicated long-term relationship with painter Jean-Paul Riopelle. After 1959, she maintained her studio in Paris, first at rue Frémicourt and from 1968 in Vétheuil, a small village outside the city. During the late 1950s, Mitchell’s critical success was further established when the Whitney Museum of American Art purchased Hemlock (1956), and the Museum of Modern Art acquired Ladybug (1957). Mitchell was the first recipient of the Distinguished Artist Award for Lifetime Achievement from the College Art Association (1988).