City Landscape

1955 · Painting

May one see it?

Yes, receiving visitors

Art Institute of Chicago

Chicago, United States

Room291

On public display.

Checked: 14 hours ago
In this state since: Aug 19, 2026
Source: The museum's own collection data

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About the painting

City Landscape is the title given to a series of several abstract expressionist oil paintings by 20th-century American painter Joan Mitchell. Art critics have described the abstract works in the series as cityscapes, with their colorful, central elements each resembling a grid found in urban planning. The central density of painting techniques and the outer spaces are both widely critiqued.

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The most prominent version is held by the Art Institute of Chicago and has been frequently lent out on exhibition for retrospectives of her work. This is a work that is associated with Mitchell as an exemplar of her work. Mitchell produced many artworks of a similar style during the mid-1950s. Rockefeller University sold one work in the series in 2024, receiving just over $17 million for it at auction after deciding to list it to fund scientific research. Both well-known versions were painted in 1955 and acquired from the Stable Gallery in 1958 after limited exhibition exposure.

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In the museum's words

Although influenced by Abstract Expressionist artists in New York in the early 1950s, Joan Mitchell did not prioritize self-expression: her often exuberant abstractions were “about landscape, not about me,” she once explained. Mitchell painted large, light-filled canvases animated by loosely applied skeins of bright color—here infused with the energy of a large metropolis.

The title suggests a relationship between the painting’s network of pigments and the nerves or arteries of an urban space. The sense of spontaneity conveyed in City Landscape, however, belies Mitchell’s methods. Unlike many of her contemporaries, who were dubbed “action painters,” Mitchell worked slowly and deliberately. “I paint a little,” she said. “Then I sit and look at the painting, sometimes for hours. Eventually, the painting tells me what to do.”

Art Institute of ChicagoCC BY 4.0