Joan Miró

JOAN MIRÓ I FERRÀ (Barcelona, 1893 - Palma de Mallorca, 1983).
"Untitled 6", 1974.
Gouache, ink and pastel on Japan paper.
Signed.
With certificate of authenticity issued by ADOM.
Provenance:
- Pierre Matisse Gallery, New York.
- Acquavella Galleries, New York.
- Galerie Claude Bernard, Paris.
Bibliography: W. Schmalenbanch, Joan Miró, Propyläen, Berlin, 1982, n. 43, p. 89 (col).
Measurements: 41 x 41 cm; 62.5 x 62.5 cm (frame).

This work by Joan Miró, executed with mixed materials on Japan paper, is part of the most lyrical and essentialist of his mature graphic and pictorial production. Miró constructs a constellation of minimal signs (a red dot bordered with black, a schematic humanoid figure, a blue circle with blurred edges and two signs that recall both the number one and mountain peaks) on an almost immaculate white field, which the artist turns not into a void, but into a living, expectant space. The economy of means and the deliberate dispersion of forms respond to a poetic and evocative logic rather than a narrative one. The vibrant red dot could be interpreted as a cosmic heart, the solar disk or an energy nucleus. The blue circle, diffuse, seems to radiate serenity or distance: color and form associated with the dreamlike and spiritual in Miró's symbolism. The human figure, reduced to an almost infantile sign, is a constant in the artist's work: it represents not so much man as such, but the primordial being, the inhabitant of dream and myth. The two angular signs act as rhythmic marks or visual accents, anchoring the composition and participating in the ambiguous play between writing, symbol and landscape. The Japan paper, chosen for its organic texture and visual fragility, accentuates the ephemeral and meditative character of the work. The fragile and silky texture reinforces the idea of a living, vulnerable surface: a field where signs float with lightness and intensity.

Joan Miró was trained in Barcelona, and made his individual debut in 1918, at the Dalmau Galleries. In 1920 he moved to Paris and met Picasso, Raynal, Max Jacob, Tzara and the Dadaists. There, under the influence of surrealist poets and painters, he matures his style; he tries to transpose surrealist poetry to the visual, based on memory, fantasy and the irrational. His third exhibition in Paris, in 1928, was his first great triumph: the Museum of Modern Art in New York acquired two of his works. He returned to Spain in 1941, and that same year the museum dedicated a retrospective to him that would be his definitive international consecration. Throughout his life he received numerous awards, such as the Grand Prizes of the Venice Biennale and the Guggenheim Foundation, the Carnegie Prize for Painting, the Gold Medals of the Generalitat de Catalunya and the Fine Arts, and was named Doctor Honoris Causa by the universities of Harvard and Barcelona. His work can currently be seen at the Joan Miró Foundation in Barcelona, as well as at the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, the MoMA in New York, the Reina Sofía Museum in Madrid, the National Gallery in Washington, the MNAM in Paris and the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo.