Joan Miró

JOAN MIRÓ (Barcelona 1893 – Palma de Mallorca 1983)
Untitled, 1981.
Gouache and etching on paper. Unique work.
Accompanied by a certificate issued by Tristán Barbará (Joan Barbará Chalcographic Workshop).
Framed with museum-grade glass.
Signed at the bottom. The reverse of the work bears the inscription: “Maqueta III Miró – gravado- mod. V” and a wet stamp from Barbará Calcografía, Editions Barcelona.
Signed at the bottom.
Measurements: 63 x 49 cm; 91 x 76 cm (frame).

-Provenance: Gift from the artist to Joan Barbará.

Conceived as a preparatory model for the famous etching *Miró Graveur 5*, this work is an exceptional testament to Joan Miró’s creative process. On an etching proof, the artist intervenes directly with gouache, defining the main compositional elements, the repertoire of signs, and the intense chromatic organization that will characterize the final print. It is, therefore, a work of special interest both artistically and documentarily, as it allows us to directly trace the creative process behind one of his most recognizable graphic compositions.
Created in 1981, during the final stage of Miró’s career, the composition synthesizes, with admirable economy of means, the essential features of his late style. Against a vast white space, a small set of signs, biomorphic forms, and black gestures is arranged with perfect balance, while accents of red, yellow, green, and blue imbue the surface with a chromatic vibrancy of great intensity.
It is worth noting that the work up for auction belonged to Joan Barbarà, a master printmaker and collaborator of Joan Miró during the final decades of the artist’s career. Barbarà received this piece as a personal gift from Miró, with whom he maintained a close working relationship throughout numerous graphic projects. This provenance places the work directly within the context of the print’s creation and documents the professional and personal bond between the two artists.
The work exemplifies the formal refinement characteristic of Miró’s later years, when negative space, gesture, and color take center stage. The result is an image of extraordinary poetic power and expressive freedom, where the apparent spontaneity stems from a refined visual composition.

Joan Miró trained in Barcelona, where he held his first solo exhibition in 1918 at the Dalmau Galleries. In 1920, he moved to Paris, where he came into contact with the Surrealist circle and developed his own artistic language based on free association, memory, and the irrational. International recognition came quickly: in 1928, MoMA in New York acquired works by him, and in 1941 it dedicated a major retrospective to him.

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