American painter who studied at the Art Institute of Chicago (1944-49) and Columbia University in New York (1950). Between 1950 and 1955, she set up her own studio in St Mark's Place and was part of a community of Abstract painters influenced by Abstract Expressionism, namely by the works of De Kooning, Gorky and Franz Kline. Her objective was mainly to portray the landscape itself and not just the emotions that could be aroused by it. In 1955, Mitchell moved to Paris, where she continued painting large paintings where a web of colours on a neutral background predominated. This artist highlighted a devotion to nature, already approached by artists such as Cézanne and Kandinsky, but now expressed in more contemporary terms.