Joan Miró

JOAN MIRÓ (Barcelona, 1893 - Palma de Mallorca, 1983).
Untitled. 1958
Wax on lithographic ground.
Signed and dated in ink.
Attached certificate issued by ADOM.
Measurements: 21 x 14 cm; 61,5 x 54 cm (frame).

This work is fully inscribed in the period of maturity of Joan Miró, when his plastic language reaches a particularly refined synthesis between sign, gesture and color. The composition is built from a black line of great expressive autonomy, which acts as a rhythmic and structural framework, on which vibrant chromatic interventions are deployed, applied with an apparent spontaneity that hides a deep compositional control.

The iconographic universe eloquently refers to Miró's poetic imaginary: organic forms that suggest hybrid creatures, almost animated presences that oscillate between the animal, the cosmic and the symbolic. Eyes, orbiting strokes and suspended signs evoke constellations and mental landscapes, configuring a space where the primordial and the oneiric intertwine. This visual repertoire, developed by the artist since the post-war period, responds to his desire to construct a universal language, free of narrative ties, deeply connected to the unconscious and the poetic.

The lithographic support provides a delicate texture that dialogues with the energy of the stroke and the vividness of the color, reinforcing the characteristic tension in Miró's work between automatism and formal discipline. The interaction between surface and gesture generates a sensation of lightness and movement, while emphasizing the materiality of the creative process.

The work as a whole stands out for its expressive intensity and internal balance, offering a clear and refined reading of Miró's plastic thought during these years. It is a particularly attractive work within his production on paper, both for the richness of its formal vocabulary and for the freshness and authenticity with which it embodies one of the most recognizable and celebrated imaginaries of the Catalan master.

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.