Joan Mitchell Foundation Publishes Report on Artist Legacy Stewardship

The Joan Mitchell Foundation has released a report titled “Creating Future Memory: Building the Field of Artist Legacy Stewardship,” the foundation has announced. The document is available as a free PDF download through the foundation’s website.

How the research was built

According to the foundation, the report was authored by Solana Chehtman and Sharon Mizota. Its research draws on a survey of more than 150 respondents described as artists, family members, archivists, curators and legacy professionals.

The scope is wide by design. The report’s aim, as set out by the foundation, is to develop a field-level view of artist legacy stewardship rather than a single-case or institutional account.

The report surveyed more than 150 artists, family members, archivists, curators and legacy professionals.

Why the subject touches the art market

Artist legacy stewardship sits at the intersection of estates and estates administration, archives and documentation, curatorial access and long-term institutional relationships. For collectors, advisors and institutions, the practical questions are consistent: how an artist’s body of work is documented, safeguarded and made accessible over time.

By focusing on the people who carry that responsibility, the foundation’s report addresses the human infrastructure behind an artist’s legacy — the family members, archivists, curators and professionals whose work shapes what survives and how it is understood.

A foundation-led frame

The Joan Mitchell Foundation’s decision to publish the findings openly, and without charge, positions the research as a reference point for the wider field. The report’s stated ambition is to build the field of artist legacy stewardship as a shared professional discipline rather than an isolated estate-management task.

That framing matters to institutions and advisors who deal with artists’ legacies across decades. Legacy work is rarely a single transaction. It involves records, rights, archives and the coordination of multiple parties.

The report’s survey base — more than 150 respondents spanning artists, family members, archivists, curators and legacy professionals — gives it a breadth that single-institution studies typically lack, though the foundation has not disclosed further findings in the material supplied.

What remains unpublished here

The foundation has not provided the report’s detailed conclusions, recommendations or data breakdowns in the announcement. What is established is the report’s title, its authors, its survey scope, its publisher and its free availability as a PDF.

For those working with artists’ estates and legacy planning, the report adds a documented, foundation-published resource to the field. Its value will rest on the evidence it presents, which will be found in the report itself.

The Joan Mitchell Foundation’s publication of “Creating Future Memory” places the question of legacy stewardship in a research context — one built from the experience of the people who do the work.