In Paris, in 1951, I was using a grid to draw the reflected light of the Seine River in a chance process. During that time I did a number of drawings that take water as their theme. I've always been fascinated by reflections of light on water.

A few years ago I was staying at the Drei Könige Hotel in Basel. The Rhine River was in flood with enormous currents flowing very fast. Young people were floating down the river on rafts or relaxing on triangular cement piers facing upstream. I could hear them yelling to one another as a weird storm came up, obscuring my view. Later that night I couldn't sleep, went out onto the balcony, and looked at the river below. I could see lights reflecting from the other side of the river onto the turbulent water.

It was only when seeing connections between earlier work and one of the prints I had been working on that I decided to call the print The River. It consists of four lithographs printed with two plates each. Later I would print all eight individual states and call it States of the River.

In earlier prints related to water, specifically my series of lithographs named after places on Saint Martin (1983-84), I created textures somewhat by chance. I didn't want markings that evinced a conscious effort, like calligraphy or filling-in, so I covered a surface in random brushwork and then placed over it shapes that would "frame" a particular part.

The River derives from these textured lithographs. At the print workshop Gemini G.E.L., it is customary for rejected impressions to be cut up into 6 x 4-inch note cards. In 1984, when Gemini sent me some cards made from my Saint Martin Triptych, I began playing with them, putting them together in different combinations. One of these combinations, a 6 x 16-inch horizontal composition, was enlarged to 40 x 109 inches, and later became The River.

Following my trip to Basel, I realized it not only related to my 1951 paintings like Cité and Meschers, based on brushstrokes cut up and arranged by chance; it was also a continuation of my first experiments with reflected light on the Seine.

It was in the process of proofing The River that River II came about. While considering impressions of four of the eight original plates of The River on different white papers, one pinned on the wall over the other, I created a new print measuring 80 x 109 inches. I liked another accident: on the lower sheet the left-most image was printed upside down. River II preserves this accidental reflection. *

*Statement by Ellsworth Kelly based on notes from a telephone conversation between Ellsworth Kelly and Emily Rauh Pulitzer, 6 July 2007.