Janet Mitchell (artist)

Janet Mitchell RCA LL.D (November 24, 1912 – February 26, 1998)[1] was a Canadian modernist painter from Alberta, known for her fantasies of Calgary in watercolours and oils.

She left home at age 14, and in addition to continuing her education at Crescent Heights High School, she worked as a chambermaid to pay for her room and board.

[3] The following year, she moved back home, but Rose forced her to quit school at the end of Grade 9 to work as a full-time chambermaid, confiscating all of Janet's wages.

His new wife, Maude, was much more supportive of Mitchell's artistic inclinations, and gave her a set of oil paints for her 21st birthday.

[7] In 1965, the Save the Children Fund chose one of her paintings for their annual Christmas cards, making her the first Western Canadian artist to be so honoured.

[3] Following Maude's death in 1967, Mitchell sold their Calgary house and toured European museums and art galleries for a year.

[3] Mitchell painted "highly realistic landscapes and townscapes of Western Canada", as well as "whimsical, sometimes dreamlike images in vibrant colors of cats, dogs, birds or fanciful floating people.

"[5] In the Calgary Herald, Nancy Tousley wrote that "[l]ike Mitchell herself, [her] work has a buoyant spirit.

[4][8] In Canadian art, she was influenced by David Milne[7] and by Jock Macdonald who inspired her to explore the unconscious mind from 1946 to 1957.

Colourful watercolour painting depicting a crowd of people celebrating in the street.
People of the Street #24 (1970), from the Alberta Art Foundation Collection.
1992 Canada Post stamp featuring Mitchell's watercolour Across the Tracks to Shop
Hoisting the Sails , an example of Mitchell's "whimsical, sometimes dreamlike images."