The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of July 10, 2026

A vertically oriented color lithograph features a composition of layered newspaper fragments in muted gray and cream. Centered in the lower half, a large, jagged dark brown shape sits beneath a single blue line extending to the top edge. Large Spanish text runs vertically along the left edge. Small splatters of red and blue pigment mark the weathered, textured surface, revealing fragmented English print, faint figures, and a star motif in the background.

Life Is a Parade

1998

Juan Sánchez

(American, b. 1954)
publisher

Tamarind Institute

America
color lithograph
Gift of Jack and Linda Lissauer in Honor of Susan and Dean Trilling 2024.48.b
© Juan Sánchez
Location: Not on view

Did You Know?

This print is one of several that Juan Sánchez created in collaboration with Tamarind Institute, a print publisher in New Mexico.

Description

Born in Brooklyn to Puerto Rican immigrants, Juan Sánchez explores his cultural heritage throughout his artistic practice. This print uses imagery related to Puerto Rican Day parades to consider the challenges and struggles faced by Puerto Ricans upon relocating to the United States, alongside iconography—such as the upside-down palm tree—that references Puerto Rico’s history. Of the print, the artist wrote that he “wish[es] for the viewer to feel . . . the extent of my people’s anguish as well as their prevailing joys.”
  • {{cite web|title=Life Is a Parade|url=false|author=Juan Sánchez, Tamarind Institute|year=1998|access-date=10 July 2026|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/2024.48.b