id:			441891
accession number:	2020.244.b
share license status:	Copyrighted
url:			https://clevelandart.org/art/2020.244.b
updated:		2023-01-23 22:53:55.794000

Sunflowers IV, 1992. Joan Mitchell (American, 1925–1992). Color lithograph; sheet: 144.5 x 104.5 cm (56 7/8 x 41 1/8 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Nancy F. and Joseph P. Keithley Collection Gift 2020.244.b © Estate of Joan Mitchell

title:				Sunflowers IV
title in original language:	
series:				
series in original language:	
creation date:			1992
creation date earliest:		1992
creation date latest:		1992
current location:		
creditline:			Nancy F. and Joseph P. Keithley Collection Gift
copyright:			© Estate of Joan Mitchell

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culture:	America, 20th century
technique:	color lithograph
department:	Prints
collection:	PR - Lithograph
type:		Print
find spot:	
catalogue raisonne: 

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CREATORS

* Joan Mitchell (American, 1925–1992)  - artist

* Tyler Graphics Ltd.  - printer

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measurements: Sheet: 144.5 x 104.5 cm (56 7/8 x 41 1/8 in.)
state of the work:	
edition of the work: 	ed. of 34

support materials:


inscriptions:

	inscription:	In pencil on recto, lower right: “7/34 Joan Mitchell (signed) 1992”,
	translation:	
	remark:		

	inscription:	Embossed lower right
	translation:	
	remark:		

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CURRENT EXHIBITIONS

	title:		Impressionism to Modernism: The Keithley Collection
	opening date:   2022-09-11T04:00:00
	<i>Impressionism to Modernism: The Keithley Collection</i>. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (September 11, 2022-January 8, 2023).

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LEGACY EXHIBITIONS

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PROVENANCE

	(Mary Ryan Gallery, New York, NY, sold to Nancy F. and Joseph P. Keithley, Cleveland, OH)
	date: ?-2011
	footnotes: 	
	citations: 	


	Nancy F. and Joseph P. Keithley Collection, Cleveland, OH
	date: 2011-2020
	footnotes: 	
	citations: 	


	The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
	date: September 14, 2020
	footnotes: 	
	citations: 	


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

digital 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. She explored the theme of sunflowers throughout her career, inspired by the surroundings of her home in the Seine valley of France and by the iconic paintings of Vincent Van Gogh. This lithographic diptych tap into the energy, color, and spirit of Van Gogh’s paintings, while entirely liberating the older master’s line, composition, and gesture from a natural representation of the sunflower.

wall description:
Sunflowers were a constant presence at Joan Mitchell’s home in Vétheuil, France, and a frequent source of inspiration. Made in the last year of the artist’s life, these diptychs represent the plants abstractly, with lines suggesting stems, petals, and heads in various stages of life. The expressive marks that Mitchell used throughout the works suggest her comment, made around the time she created the prints: “Sunflowers are something I feel very intensely. They look so wonderful when young and they are so very moving when they are dying.” In Mitchell’s art, sunflowers signified the passage of time and cycles of growth, life, and death.
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RELATED WORKS

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CITATIONS

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