The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of December 20, 2025

Sides of a River I

1981

Joan Mitchell

(American, 1925–1992)
publisher

Tyler Graphics Ltd.

America
color lithograph
Sheet: 108.2 x 82.5 cm (42 5/8 x 32 1/2 in.)
Nancy F. and Joseph P. Keithley Collection Gift 2020.247
© Estate of Joan Mitchell
Catalogue raisonné: 366:JM4
Location: Not on view

Did You Know?

To make this print, Mitchell painted clear sheets of Mylar, which allowed her to layer colors for printing and retain a sense of immediacy.

Description

Abstract painter Joan Mitchell’s monumental lithographs convey her experience of the landscape and combine the complexity, intensity, and fluidity of abstracted lines that are fundamental to her work. In this lithograph, part of her Bedford series, 1981, heavily abstracted, dense bands of colorretain traces of the natural world, which can be seen as riverbanks. The expressive, gestural color marks are balanced by the white of the sheet, which also acts as the source of light or reflection off the water.
  • ?-2011
    (Mary Ryan Gallery, New York, NY, sold to Nancy F. and Joseph P. Keithley, Cleveland, OH)
    2011-2020
    Nancy F. and Joseph P. Keithley Collection, Cleveland, OH
    September 14, 2020
    The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
  • Tyler, Kenneth E. Tyler Graphics: Catalogue Raisonné, 1974-1985. Minneapolis: Walker Art Center, 1987. 366:JM4
    Roberts, Sarah. "Joan Mitchell." In The Keithley Collection at the Cleveland Museum of Art, edited by Heather Lemonedes Brown, 168-181. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 2022. Mentioned and reproduced: p. 172-177; Mentioned: p. 267-268
  • Impressionism to Modernism: The Keithley Collection. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (September 11, 2022-January 8, 2023).
  • {{cite web|title=Sides of a River I|url=false|author=Joan Mitchell, Tyler Graphics Ltd.|year=1981|access-date=20 December 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/2020.247