Joan Miró

JOAN MIRÓ I FERRÀ (Barcelona, 1893 – Palma de Mallorca, 1983).
“Lithograph III,” 1930, printed in 1973.
Lithograph on Arches paper, H.C. copy, separate from the edition of 50 copies.
Signed and numbered in pencil.
Co-published by Sala Gaspar, Barcelona, and Galerie Gérald Cramer, Geneva/Paris.
Printed by Damià Cais, Barcelona.
Measurements: 57 x 45.5 cm.

Conceived in 1930, “Lithograph III” is part of Miró’s early explorations in lithography, although this edition was printed in 1973. The figure is reduced to an organism of curved lines and areas of denser graphic texture, suspended over the vast emptiness of the paper. This economy of means is characteristic of the progressive transformation of the figure into a biomorphic sign, one of the fundamental resources with which Miró articulated his personal dialogue between figuration and abstraction during these years. MoMA holds a copy of this same edition.

Lithography allows the spontaneity of the drawing to be preserved and highlights the importance that printmaking would later attain in Miró’s body of work, as an autonomous realm for experimentation with gesture, sign, and negative space.

Joan Miró was one of the leading figures in 20th-century art, with a body of work that was fundamental to the development of Surrealism and abstraction. He achieved international recognition early on: MoMA dedicated its first major retrospective to him in 1941, followed by numerous institutional retrospectives. Among other awards, he received the Grand Prize for Printmaking at the Venice Biennale and the Guggenheim Award, and his work is represented in institutions such as MoMA, the Guggenheim Museum, the Centre Pompidou, the Reina Sofía Museum, and the Fundació Joan Miró.