After a suicide attempt in 1954 brought on by the wild nights at the Cedar Bar where she became a 'brawling, destabilizing demon when drunk", a tumultuous relationship with the painter Mike Goldberg and her father's death, Joan Mitchell painted this City Landscape in 1955. It was the very height of the Abstract Expressionist movement, yet each painter had found his or her own way,

"I don't go off and slop and drip," she said, obviously referring to Jackson Pollock, "I stop, look, and listen."