December 1988 saw Mitchell's first retrospective exhibition, which she referred to as being "art-historized live". It featured 54 paintings produced from 1951 to 1987. Mitchell's first solo show at Robert Miller Gallery (of nine paintings) ran from October 25 to November 25, 1989. The second Robert Miller Gallery solo ran from March 26 to April 20, 1991, proved to be very popular, and featured paintings described by John Russell of "The New York Times" as "self-portraits by someone who has staked everything on autonomous marks that are peculiar to herself". Later retrospective surveys include “Joan Mitchell Pastels,” Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (1992); “The Paintings of Joan Mitchell,” Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2002); and “The Paintings of Joan Mitchell,” Birmingham Museum of Art, Alabama (2003), traveled to the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Texas and The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C. through 2004. On October 6, 2019, Mitchell was included in Sparkling Amazons: Abstract Expressionist Women of the 9th St. Show at the Katonah Museum of Art in Westchester County, NY. which runs through January 26, 2020.