I retired from music in order to pursue my first love, painting.

When Bush was president and the Twin Towers in New York were attacked, I did a series of political paintings. In the current climate, I felt a need to express my concern. It is an artist's duty to speak up.

Picasso created Guernica to protest the Spanish Civil War. Charlie Chaplin's film The Great Dictator ridiculed Hitler. Mel Brooks' comedy The Producers also took a poke at that mad man with "Springtime for Hitler."

NEWS is my protest song - a song not for the ears, but for the eyes.

I hope that you will not be offended by the truth of it. This is not fake news!

- Joni Mitchell

VENICE, CA (19 October 2026) - Internationally renowned artist Joni Mitchell has been a leading creative voice across the 20th and 21st centuries. Her profound contributions to the fields of music, literature, and visual art have sparked conversations and shaped cultural movements for over six decades.

At this moment, Mitchell expresses her career-defining fearlessness and conviction on canvas with NEWS, a powerful series of paintings created by the artist between 2001 and 2026. All 23 works reside in Mitchell's personal art collection, and will not be availble for sale.

Honoring decades of friendship with Mitchell and her uncompromising artistic ethos, L.A. Louver is pleased to host NEWS as a pop-up exhibition, which will be on view to the public on Thursday, October 29 and Friday, October 30, from 10 am - 6 pm.

Across the paintings of NEWS, Mitchell's creative independence and vision skewer power and politics; her voice articulates protest and resistance, as she turns her eye to the 24-hour news cycle with slogans, song lyrics, and uncompromising imagery.

Painting has been a constant practice for Mitchell throughout her life, guided by a visual language distinctly her own. She studied Painting and Illustration at the Alberta College of Art in Calgary before leaving in 1964 to pursue music and has described herself as "a painter derailed by circumstance." In Summer 2026, the same school, now Alberta University of the Arts, awarded Mitchell an honorary Master of Fine Arts.

This presentation coincides with the anticipated release of Mitchell's forthcoming book NEWS, a publication conceived, executed, and designed entirely by the artist herself. NEWS will be released on November 3, 2026, and will be available for early, exclusive purchase at L.A. Louver during the pop-up exhibition.

About Joni Mitchell

As a singer-songwriter, Joni Mitchell's distinctive voice, innovative guitar playing and poetic, thought-provoking lyrics have made her one of the most influential artists of her generation. Since her recording career began in 1968, she has released 19 studio albums and six live records, blending folk, jazz and rock into a sound that is both timely and timeless. Across nearly six decades, Mitchell's work has earned her numerous accolades, including 11 GRAMMY Awards. She is an inductee of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (1997) and the Canadian Music Hall of Fame (1981), a laureate of the Polar Music Prize (1996), and a recipient of the Kennedy Center Honors (2021), the Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song (2023), and the JUNO Lifetime Achievement Award (2026).

However, painting was always Mitchell's first love. Born in Fort Macleod, Alberta, and raised in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Mitchell studied Painting and Illustration at the Alberta College of Art in Calgary before leaving in 1964 to pursue music. She has called herself "a painter derailed by circumstance," and she never stopped painting. She created 20 of her own album covers and built a large body of work that has rarely been shown in public.

In 2000, the Mendel Art Gallery in Saskatoon presented Voices, Mitchell's first retrospective, featuring 87 works drawn from some 500 paintings, drawings and photographs made over three decades. In 2006, she followed with Green Flag Song, an exhibition of 60 new mixed media works at the Lev Moross Gallery in West Hollywood. This summer, the school she left more than 60 years ago, now Alberta University of the Arts, awarded Joni Mitchell an honorary Master of Fine Arts.

ABOUT L.A. LOUVER

L.A. Louver was founded in 1975 by Peter and Elizabeth Goulds with a commitment to establishing contemporary artists in Southern California within an international context, and introducing global artists to a Los Angeles audience. For 51 years, the gallery has represented and promoted leading artists through institutional and private acquisitions, educational programming, publication and media projects, and providing research and engagement opportunities for curators, scholars and students.

In Fall 2025, the gallery announced the conclusion of its ongoing public exhibition program and its shift to a new model that embraces private art dealing, pop-up exhibitions, artist support and projects, and consulting.

The gallery also announced the donation of the L.A. Louver Archive & Library to The Huntington in San Marino, CA. The gallery's collections comprise more than 50 years of materials and objects that document the gallery's operations, correspondence, and artist records, while also charting the wider narrative of how L.A. Louver contributed to Southern California's ascension among the leading post-war and contemporary art centers in the world. The transfer of the gallery's collections to The Huntington will take Instagram: @lalouver place in 2029.