Mitchell was already early learning the modern European art, she moved to New York in 1949 and got a travel grant she used visiting Europe till 1951. Back in the States she was one of the woman artists in the New York Eight Street Club. She belongs to the second generation – with Helen Frankenthaler – of Abstract Expressionism, where the elder woman artist Lee Krasner belonged to the first generation. In the late 1950’s her work became increasingly accepted and appreciated. Joan Mitchell didn’t seek to demarcate her art from the European art as many American painters did, and clearly there is a common lyrical atmosphere in her paintings. Between 1955 – 1959 she lived both in the States and France and than decided to settle in France definitely. In 1959 she took part in Documenta 2 in Kassel.Joan Mitchell worked and lived as young woman artist most of the time in American Abstract Expressionism in New York; later she moved definitely to France in the 1950′s. She was strongly attracted by the art of the French painter Monet!