Richard Long – River Avon Mud Drawings (1989)

Richard Long's River Avon Mud Drawings (1989) is a set of three signed granolithographs with a silkscreen title page, issued in a limited edition of 60. Each large-format print measures 65 x 96 cm, emphasizing the physical presence and material intensity central to Long's practice.

The series originates from direct contact with the River Avon. For the original artworks, Richard Long immersed paper into silt-rich river mud, allowing sediment and water to form vertical, organic traces as they settled and dried. The resulting compositions register gravity, flow, and time, transforming a simple gesture into a record of natural process. The granolithographs faithfully translate these mud drawings into print form, preserving the dense, textured surface and subtle tonal variations of the original river-made marks.

Characteristic of Long's Land Art practice, River Avon Mud Drawings collapses distinctions between drawing, performance, and landscape intervention. The artwork is both an index of a specific site and a meditation on erosion, repetition, and the elemental forces that shape the environment. Published in 1989 in a limited edition of 60, each print is hand-signed and numbered by the artist, underscoring its place within Long's broader body of nature-based editions.

|Richard Long (born 1945, Bristol) is a pioneering British artist and a central figure of the Land Art movement. Since the late 1960s, he has redefined sculpture by using the landscape itself as both material and site. Educated at the West of England College of Art and Saint Martin’s School of Art in London, Long developed a practice rooted in walking, geometry, and direct engagement with nature.

Rather than producing permanent objects, Richard Long creates temporary interventions in natural environments. By arranging stones, mud, branches, or simply walking in repeated lines and circles, he forms minimal geometric structures that exist only for a moment. These ephemeral artworks are documented through photographs, maps, text works, and limited edition prints, which function as the lasting record of his actions. Through this process, walking becomes both method and medium.

A defining early artwork, A Line Made by Walking (1967), established his artistic language: a simple path worn into grass by repeated steps. This gesture transformed movement through landscape into sculpture and conceptual drawing. Throughout his career, Long has maintained this balance between physical presence and minimal form, exploring themes of time, distance, and human scale within vast natural settings.

Awarded the Turner Prize in 1989, Richard Long has exhibited internationally at institutions including Tate, the Guggenheim Museum, and major biennials worldwide. His photographs, fine art prints, and text-based editions continue to translate his outdoor works into collectible formats, preserving the conceptual clarity and elemental power that define his contribution to contemporary art.