Joan Miró

JOAN MIRÓ (Barcelona, 1893 - Palma de Mallorca, 1983).
"La Médusante", People of the Sea series, 1981.
Aquatint, drypoint and carborundum in color on Rives paper. Copy 16/60.
Signed with stamp in the lower right corner and numbered in pencil in the lower left corner.
Reference: Dupin, nº 1283.
Measurements: 69 × 43.5 cm (print); 104.5 × 78.5 × 4 cm (frame).

In "La Médusante", Miró plays with a deliberate ambiguity between sea creature, totemic figure and hypnotic presence. The title, which can be translated as "the fascinating" or "the one who medusa/hypnotizes", links to the oceanic imaginary of People of the Sea, but also to the idea of an image that captures the gaze. The large central black mass, compact and silent, acts as a body or mask, while the organic appendages extending towards the top suggest tentacles, antennae or underwater currents.

The carborundum introduces a material density that is especially visible in the black areas, giving the print an almost tactile presence. The work does not describe a character, but invokes it through signs: a powerful silhouette, spots, dots and suspended chromatic forms. In it, Miró transforms the marine world into an enigmatic apparition, between the playful and the disturbing, faithful to the poetic freedom of his final period.

Joan Miró trained in Barcelona, where he held his first solo exhibition in 1918 at the Dalmau Galleries. In 1920 he moved to Paris, coming into contact with the surrealist circle, where he developed his own language based on free association, memory and the irrational. His international recognition came soon: in 1928 the MoMA in New York acquired his works, and in 1941 he was the subject of a major retrospective.

Throughout his career he received important distinctions, such as awards at the Venice Biennale and the Guggenheim Foundation, as well as the Gold Medals of Fine Arts and the Generalitat de Catalunya. His work is now held in leading institutions such as the Joan Miró Foundation (Barcelona), the MoMA (New York), the Reina Sofía Museum (Madrid), the National Gallery of Art (Washington) and the Centre Pompidou (Paris).