Donald Mitchell

*1951, USA

Donald Mitchell was born in San Francisco, California, and grew up there as one of a large family, living in a poor district. He was born with disabilities and was also injured in a bus accident.

Donald Mitchell has been a studio artist at the Creative Growth Art Center in Oakland, California, since 1976. His earliest works were drawn in ink. They have dense, cross-hatched patterns. He soon began to develop substantial figures, which have been characteristic of his art since then. His works always include many human figures, positioned very close to one another. This contrasts strikingly with the artist himself, as his existence is very isolated, with only a few social contacts. Perhaps they are one way of communicating with many people. His works were shown in an exhibition at the Collection de l’Art Brut in Lausanne, together with pieces by other artists who live alone or whose works depict large numbers of people. In 2004, Cheryl Rivers published a monograph, “Donald Mitchell: Right Here, Right Now”.

His works can be found in the Collection de l’Art Brut, Lausanne, in LaM in Villeneuve d’Ascq, The Museum of Everything, the collection abcd/Bruno Decharme, and in the collection of Claudia Röschl, Austria. As of 2021, Donald Mitchell has also been represented in the 921 works of the “Donation d'Art Brut de Bruno Decharme” at the Centre Pompidou in Paris.

Selected works