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MIRO
SELECTED PAINTINGS

HIRSHHORN MUSEUM AND SCULPTURE GARDEN

SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION

I
Joan Miro, the legendary gentle man, has had an ap-

preciative American audience for decades. Long be-

fore tlv artist's first visit to this country, in 1947, when

he was commissioned to paint a mural in Cincinnati,

Americans were collecting his work. His first solo

show in the United States was held in 1930 in New

York City. A substantial portion of his early painting

from the 1920s is owned by American collectors, and

some of the finest paintings from subsequent years

figure prominently in American collections. And the

admiration is mutual — Mird says that the vitality and

power of the United States stir him deeply and incite

htjfi to work Mird's link with America has remained

strong ..nd constant.

ig primarily to works from American collec-

tions, Charles Millard comments critically on the na-

ture and evolution of Mird's style, showing his in-

debtedness to the early medieval frescoes of his native

Catalonia, as well as the work of Van Gogh, Cezanne,

the Cubists, and Matisse. The eventual assimilation of

these influences freed him to pursue his own path.

Fony '.o large color reproductions in addition to six-

teen in black and white amply demonstrate Mird's

development, beginning with a surviving student

dr. "ihg, Design for a jewel (1908), and continuing to

the mot umental canvas, Blue II, and, finally the in-

triguing Bird, Insect, Constellation of 1974.

Abram Lerner, director of the Hirshhorn Museum

and Sculpture Garden, writes in the foreword that

"there has never been any doubt that Mird enjoys a

leading position among the generation of artists who

established modernism in the early part of this century.

But it has become increasingly evident that Mird's

place is alongside the most fertile of those giants

Picasso and Matisse. The astonishing fact that Mird, in

his eighty-seventh year, is still productive and his work

as youthful ,?ncl innovative as ever is a phenomenon

worthy of celebration."

Abo<« . Author
harles Millard is Chief Curator, Hirshhorn Museum
J Sculp 11 re Garden, Washington, D.C.
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BOSTON
PUBLIC
LIBRARY
BOSTON
PUBLIC
LIBRARY
MIRO SELECTED PAINTINGS
'^
:
 Charles W. Millard

SELECTED PAINTINGS
MIRO
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution

Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, D.C., 1980

Cover: Miro in Carl Holty's studio, New York, 1947
Detail of photograph by Arnold Newman © Arnold Newman

Exhibition Dates
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution,
Washington, D.C., March 20-June 8, 1980
Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York, June 27-August 17, 1980

© 1980 by Smithsonian Institution. All rights reserved.

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden.
Miro: selected paintings.
Catalog of an exhibition held at Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Mar.
20-June 8, 1980, and at Albright-Knox Art Gallery, June 27-Aug. 1 7, 1980.
1. Miro, Joan, 1893- —Exhibitions. I. Miro, Joan, 1893- II. Millard, Charles W.
III. Albright-Knox Art Gallery.
ND813.M5A4 1980 759.6 79-9662

ISBN 0-87474-638-8
ISBN 0-87474-639-6 (pbk.)
 1

CONTENTS

Lenders to the Exhibition

9 Foreword Abram Lerner

1 Acknowledgments

13 Miro Charles W. Millard

35 Miro and the United States Judi Freeman

42 Chronology Judi Freeman

49 Catalog of the Exhibition

LENDERS TO THE EXHIBITION

Mr. and Mrs. James W. Alsdorf,

Chicago
Mr. and Mrs. Armand Bartos,

New York
Mr. and Mrs. Gordon Bunshaft,
New York
Carimati Collection, New York
CPLY Art Trust, New York
Ernest Hemingway, New York
Annette Mandel Inc., Great Neck, New York
James Johnson Sweeney, New York
Four anonymous lenders

Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo,

New York
The Art Institute of Chicago
The Detroit Institute of Arts

Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University,

Cambridge, Massachusetts
The Solomon R. Guggenheim
Museum, New York
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture
Garden, Smithsonian Institution,

Washington, D.C.
The Meadows Museum, Southern
Methodist University, Dallas
The Museum of Modern Art, New York
New OrleansMuseum of Art
Philadelphia Museum of Art
The St. Louis Art Museum
The University of Iowa Museum of Art,
Iowa City
Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford,

Connecticut

Pierre Matisse Gallery, New York

Perls Galleries, New York
E. V. Thaw and Co., Inc., New York
 a

FOREWORD

There has never been any doubt that me into an ardent Miro fan. It is par-

Miro enjoys a leading position among tially the memory of this youthful en-

the generation of artists who estab- counter, overshadowed as it is by the

lished modernism in the early part of more significant purpose of this exhibi-
this century. But it has become increas- tion, that gives me such pleasure in

ingly evident that Miro's place is thanking those institutions and collec-
alongside the most fertile of those tors who were willing to part, even

giants — Picasso and Matisse. The as- temporarily, with their precious paint-

tonishing fact that Miro, in his eighty- ings, and the Museum's staff for putting

seventh year, is still productive and his it together with their usual dedication
work as youthful and innovative as and expertise.
ever is a phenomenon worthy of cele-

bration. Abram Lerner

There has always been an apprecia- Director

tive American audience for his art —

factor in our decision to limit this ex-

hibition to works in American public

and private collections only. It would
be interesting to speculate on those
qualities in Miro's work that make his

art so popular on this side of the Atlan-

tic, for we seem to be especially sus-
ceptible to the wit and fancy evident in

even his earliest works. If our national

character can be seen as being simul-
taneously pragmatic and visionary,
then perhaps we have a natural affinity

for these spirited canvases in which

the unreal and allusive achieve such
vitality and substance.
In my student days I encountered
my first Miro, the wonderful Dog Bark-
ing at the Moon (catalog number 1 5) in

the Gallatin Collection, then housed at

New York University. This delightful
amalgam of humor, fantasy, and high
art never lost its fascination and turned
 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

First and foremost, I would like to ac- Museum would be to name the entire
knowledge the generous cooperation staff. One must, however, acknowl-

of the lenders to this exhibition, who edge Abram Lerner, Director, and
have been good enough to part with Stephen E. Weil, Deputy Director, as
their valuable and fragile treasures for well as Laurence Hoffman, Conserva-

its duration. Among those who were tion; Nancy F. Kirkpatrick, Administra-

most helpful during the preparatory tion and Museum Support Services;
stages are the dealers through whose Edward Lawson, Education; Douglas
hands Miro's paintings have passed, Robinson, Registrar; Joseph Shannon,
some of whom are also lenders. These Exhibits and Design; Captain Kenneth
include William Acquavella, Harold Thomas, Guards; and Frank Under-
Diamond, Richard Feigen, Stephen wood, Building Services. Special

Hahn, Klaus Perls, and Eugene Thaw. thanks are due Bette Walker, who
Pierre Matisse, Miro's principal dealer typed the manuscript of the catalog
in the United States, and the staff of his and who, in general, manages to main-
gallery are due special thanks for their tain my curatorial life, and
order in

cordial assistance. Christopher Burge Nancy Grubb, who did her accus-
of Christie's and Ian Dunlopof tomed fine job of editing the catalog

Sotheby Parke Bernet have also been and supervising its production despite
extremely cooperative, as has Arnold a crushing schedule.

Newman. Research for the catalog has Last, and in many ways most impor-
been materially assisted by Elisabeth tant, my thanks to Judi Freeman who,
Holty; Josep Lluis Sert; Mary Maynard in most essential respects, produced
of Harvard University; Janette B. the exhibition from start to finish.

Rozene of the Museum of Modern Art,

New York; Grace Kean of the Cincin- CM.

nati Art Museum; Frances Forman of

the Cincinnati Historical Society; and

William Treeseof the University of
California at Santa Barbara. Here in

Washington, LeRoy Makepeace, of the

Smithsonian Institution's Office of In-

ternational Programs, and David Scott,

of the National Gallery of Art, have

been generously helpful.

To name those who have assisted

11 the exhibition within the Hirshhorn
 MIRO
Charles W. Millard

The genesis of the present exhibition and catalog was my desire to write critically about
Miro's painting and to present a retrospective selection of that painting to an audience
not heretofore widely exposed to it. While Miro's name is familiar everywhere, his

painting has been seen in quantity in this country only in New York. Although

individual works of great quality are to be found in almost all major American
museums, as well as in private collections in many cities (notably Chicago), it is a

curious fact that few museum exhibitions of his painting have been mounted outside of
Manhattan. None has ever taken place in Washington or Buffalo, for example. The
decision to limit this exhibition to American works was taken not only because of the

quality and variety of the available material, but also to keep the financial and
logistical aspects of the exhibition within bounds. The number of works reflects the

space available in the Hirshhorn Museum for loan exhibitions. The specific content of

the exhibition results, as usual, from a confrontation of the ideal with the real. Many
works that I had wanted to include were unavailable for loan, for reasons either

technical or personal. Since, however, my main object was to represent the quality of

Miro's painting rather than its protean variety, enough first-rate works could be found
to constitute an exhibition that will, I hope, both show the nature of his development
and provide ample demonstration of his accomplishment.
Among Miro's few surviving student drawings, Design for a jewel (fig. 1) of 1908 is

notable for what it says about the artistic sensibility of its author. Conceived in the

shape of a serpent biting itself and focused on the large stone that represents the

serpent's eye, the Design is, as suits its purpose, highly decorative in its sinuous
configuration. Not far removed in time from the extravagances of Art Nouveau, which

had a particular efflorescence in Miro's native Catalonia, the Design clearly reflects

that movement's preference for tendrillike configurations. By way of contrast to the

general decorative nature of the Design, the open jaws with their huge teeth seem
particularly aggressive, and the oversized stone of the eye borders on vulgarity. These
apparently contradictory strains are modulated in the drawing by the fluid yet regular,

almost geometrical, patterning of the serpent's body, which manages to reinforce both

of them while simultaneously binding them together in pictorial tension.

By 1914 Miro had passed beyond the exercises of his student years to works of

greater ambition, and the range of his artistic references expanded in scope and quality
accordingly. The Landscape, Montroig [1, fig. 2]* of that year reflects the interest in the

13 * Numbers in brackets refer to catalog entries.

 Fig. 1

Miro
Design for a Jewel, 1908
Fundacio Joan Miro, Barcelona

Fig. 2

Miro
Landscape, Montroig, 1914 [1]

.
m> a i

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Fig. 3
r

Vincent van Gogh (Dut< h, lH >s I890)

Olive Orchard, I889
Rijksmuseum Vincenl van Gogh, Amsterdam

14
 work of Van Gogh that the artist has always acknowledged. Not only is its composition
clearly indebted to the older master's late landscapes (see fig. 3), but the tachiste paint

application, most apparent in the sky, and the tendency toward careful division both of

compositional elements and of types of brushstroke evidence how compelling Miro

found Van Gogh's style. The fact that several of the pictures attributable to 1914-15 are
unsure in composition or dark-valued, almost muddy, in color suggests how much
Miro had need of Van Gogh's structural and coloristic clarity, not to mention the
sympathy one aspect of his artistic personality must have felt with the intense and

anguished sensibility expressed in the Dutchman's work.

By 1916-17 increasing compositional clarity —sometimes dependent on com-

partmentalization of forms — and gradual lightening of color suggest that Miro had

thoroughly internalized his art historical lessons, assisted by the more contemporary
achievements of Fauvism. The rounded forms of The Path, Ciurana (Tappenbeck
collection, Mouzay, France), of 1917, clearly reflect the writhing masses of Van Gogh's
last pictures, while its color harmonies owe a substantial debt to the blue-green-ocher

triad favored by Impressionism and transmitted to the twentieth century in the work of

Cezanne and others. By 1917 Miro was sufficiently confident to play original variations

on these themes, and in The Path the warmer tones are brought to the foreground and
fragmented, while a large area of intense, uninflected blue at the top represents the sky.

The result contradicts the usual effect of advancing warm and receding cool tones,
bringing the top of the composition forward and flattening the entire picture. The

Village, Prades 1 4 ], also of 1917, uses the same general coloristic pattern in a composi-
tion that is at once stronger and less unified than that of The Path. The forms of the

village in the background are modulated internally by color changes that produce a
curious warping effect. The resulting softness, apparent also in the modulated sky, is

played off against the bold decorative patterning of the foreground, with its sequences
of inverted chevrons and arched or serpentine parallel lines. Each of the lines or

chevrons within these sequences is clearly differentiated from the others by color

contrast, and Miro makes much of the oranges, purples, and other off-colors that began
to have an important place in his work at this time. While formal clarity and discrete-

ness seem to have been almost obsessions with him during the late 'teens, his

increasing use of mixed colors helped unify his pictures.

The year 1918 was one of particular importance for Miro's painting. It was then that

the human figure consistently joined landscape and still life as a significant subject for

15 him, and more important, it was then that hi^ art first declared itself as one of major
 —
Fig. 5 Fig. 6
Miro Vincent van Gogh (Dutch, 1853-1890)
Portrait of Juanita Obrador, 1918 [7] Portrait of Trabu, 1889
Private collection

quality. The strains discernible in Design for a jewel, which later developments
identify as decorative and expressionist, continued to exist side by side in his work,
Fig. 4
Catalan, 12th century
accommodated in increasingly subtle ways but never entirely synthesized. In Portrait

Christ in Majesty (detail) of juanita Obrador [7, fig. 5], for example, the expressive distortions of the face
Courtesy Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Marie Antoinette Evans Fund
almond eyes, hollow cheeks, and bulbous nose —are modulated with color and
played off against the powerful striped patterning of the dress. The strength of both face

and dress, in turn, helps maintain three dimensions by exerting pressure counter to that

of the heavily patterned and high-valued wallpaper of the background, so reminiscent

of that dear to Cezanne, another of Miro's idols. The whole effect recalls that of Van
Gogh's Portrait of Trabu (fig. 6) where, however, the background pressure is exerted not

by patterning but by intensity of color and obvious brushwork. The juanita Obrador is

characterized by a peculiar reversal in which the loosely patterned and almost

flesh-colored ground seems more human than the harsh, aggressive figure. The whole
is drawn together by a toning down of the white stripes of the dress, in part with a pink

related to that of the ground. Miro's interest in flattening his compositions during the
years around the First World War is evidenced not only in his use of painted pattern,
but also in the introduction of collage elements both to bring ba< kgrounds forward, as

with the Japanese print in [he Portrait of E. C. Ricart (S( hoenborn ( ollec lion, New York)
and the wallpaper in the Portrait of Ramon Sunyvr |6|, and to assort the pit ture plane,

as with the card pasted to the Still Life with ( offee Mill [5]. I lis debl to ( ubism Is

particularly obvious in the latter case.

16 Miro's interest in Cubism at this time seems largely to have been c entered on the sort
Fig. 7
Miro
Standing Nude, 1918 [8]

Fig. 8
Henri Matisse (French, 1869-1954)
Harmony in Red, 1908-9
Hermitage Museum, Leningrad
© S.P.A.D.E.M., Paris/V.A.C.A.,
New York

of provincial or peripheral — not to say decorative — Cubism that characterizes the

work of artists such as Bakst. This is particularly obvious in Miro's first major master-
piece, the Standing Nude of 1918 [8, fig. 7). Cubist-related patterns are used to render

the figure, which is played off against an aggressively patterned and brightly colored

ground in much the same way that the Russian's ballet designs juxtapose flat, patterned

renderings of costume with Cubistically distorted three-dimensional human forms (see

fig. 9). More important affinities with the Standing Nude are to be seen in Matisse's

"Islamic" pictures of around 1910, such as The Painter's Family and Harmony in Red
(fig. 8). Here, figures rendered rather differently from Miro's are seen against patterns

fully as dominant in color and design as those of the younger master, an effect that has

roots in the work of Degas and Vuillard. Moreover, the Standir.g Nude and the Matisse

works in question both exploit a spatial compression produced by downward views of

the floors on which the figures stand. Although the overall impression of the Miro is

one of extreme flatness, almost all the forms are subtly modulated, reinforcing the

richness of the whole. The rug is rendered in daring contrasts of peach and maroon,

while the background juxtaposes brilliant red, blue, green, and yellow, often inten-

Fig. 9
sified with other shades of the same hue. Since Miro's color has a stridency not to be

Leon Bakst (Russian, 1866-1924) found in the more polished achievements of Matisse, he is obliged to insert a delicate
The Firebird, 1913
plant pattern against a neutral ground at the right so that the picture as a whole can
Collection, The Museum of Modern Art,

New York breathe. The extreme clarity with which each element of Miro's composition declares
The Joan and Lester Avnet Collection itself, and his apparent effort to give every passage in the Standing Nude equal pictorial
© S.P.A.D.E.M., Paris/V.A.G.A., New York
weight, suggests another source for his visual effects.

In addition to Matisse, to Cezanne and the Cubists, and to Van Gogh and the Fauves,
Miro was certainly attracted to such impressive accomplishments of early medieval art

as the fresco cycles at Tahu 1 1 and Urgell in his native Catalonia (see fig. 4). Although the
17 visual conventions of these cycles are at times surprisingly congruent to those of early
twentieth-century art and their influence on Miro's painting is, at least partly for that

reason, difficult to specify, the stylization of the eyes, nose, and mouth in works such as
the juanita Obrador, not to mention its overall patterning and other devices, clearly
suggests how thoroughly and broadly Miro had absorbed the artistic environment of
his youth.

To speak of influence in the work of Miro is neither to denigrate that work nor to

explain it, or any part of it, away. The artistic process that goes by the name of influence
is important not in the fact that one artist takes ideas or effects from another but in what

the expropriating artist does with what he takes. Any young artist looks naturally to

older masters and to his contemporaries to find work outside himself to which he can
respond, work that confirms him in his own ideas, freeing him to pursue his own path

by showing him not only that such a path exists but also that it leads in a viable

direction. Influence is, thus, partly an act of recognition, an objective confirmation of

one's own inner being, and partly a way in which the creative temperament takes
courage, finding role models in the outside world by means of which it confirms the

validity of its own existence. As an artist matures, this process continues and, indeed,

his openness to the world around him — his willingness to be influenced —can be a
gauge of his maturity. If in his youth an artist tends to be influenced by making works

that look ike those of another, or to exploit effects identified with another, that
I is merely
a shortcut to his own artistic identity, an aid to working through the important
professional problems that confront him. In his maturity, influence may take far subtler
form and the transformation of borrowed material can be so instantaneous and so
complete as to be invisible. To what degree and by whom an artist is influenced are

clues both to his personal predilections and to his aesthetic aims and ambitions. What
he does with that influence illuminates the scope of those aims and ambitions as well
as the quality of his ultimate achievement.

In 1919 Miro made his first trip to Paris. Having absorbed everything his native land,

even a center as cosmopolitan as Barcelona, could teach him — summed up in the

work of 1918, particularly the Standing Nude he, like all artists OJ major talent and
ambition, was drawn to new challenges in what was then the art c apital ol the world,

Although the 1919 trip was brief, its effect was profound, a\u\ he relumed the following
year to take up what was to be semi-permanent resideiK e in I rain e. While Miro was to

find his professional home in the Paris art world, its immediate iinp.ic I on him was so
stunning that his painting output dec lined notk eably lor a period ol about foui yean
while he looked, explored, experimented, and absorbed.
 Fig. 10
Miro
Standing Nude, 1921
Alsdorf Foundation, Chicago

The table-top still lifes of this period show him assaying with more accuracy the

effects of Cubism — Synthetic Cubism in the 1920 Spanish Playing Cards (Cowles

collection, Minneapolis) and a combination of Synthetic and Analytic Cubism in

Horse, Pipe, and Red Flower (Miller collection, Downington, Pennsylvania) of the

same year, a picture of great compositional complexity. The 1921 Standing Nude (fig.

10), its simplified but modulated figural forms played off against an uninfected

background whose geometrical shapes are clearly generated by the overall size and
shape of the canvas itself, brought Miro as close as he was to come to the borderline

between Synthetic Cubism and Purism. The figure's face exploits the simultaneous
frontal and profile views so often used by Picasso; the breasts, separated by the width
of the body, are seen from different angles; and the hands are exercises in representing

the same anatomical feature according to different pictorial conventions. That Miro

struggled to refine the picture is obvious from the decorative background elements
some in contrasting colors, that were painted over and are now reemerging as

pentimenti. In its finished form, the color scheme of the painting is austere almost to the

point of monochrome. Further essays in reductionism are to be seen in such works as

the far of Grain (1922-23, Museum of Modern Art, New York), which also experi-
ments with creating a composition large in scale but small in format. The most
prophetic of Miro's works during this period, however, is The Farmer^ Wife of
1922-23 (Duchamp collection, Neuilly), a drastically simplified work in which the
reduction of certain elements to abstract notations suggests Miro's pictures of the

middle and late twenties. Similarly, the monstrously exaggerated feet of the epon\ -

19 mous figure foreshadow the free reign Miro was soon to give his fantasy.
 The most important of Miro's works at this time is The Farm of 1921 -22 [9], which
synthesizes the concerns of the early Paris period, as the 1 91 8 Standing Nude did those

of the Barcelona years. In this great work, two large tonal areas are established, warm
for the foreground and cool for the sky. Although certain colors register quite

strongly — notably blue and red —there is a tendency toward coloristic subtlety evi-

denced in the graying of almost all the hues. What would normally be highlights are

toned —the moon grayed and the architecture putty colored —while what would
down
normally be the deepest darks are similarly ameliorated — the leaves of the eucalyptus,
for example, which seem black, are in fact dark green. Moreover, large color areas are
suppressed —the wall of the house at the left covered with moss and fissures, the sky

seen behind the eucalyptus fanning out across it. A tendency toward compartmen-
talized pattern is similarly suppressed, as in the cornstalk rising at the lower left to

soften the regular ridges of the field. All these devices work to unify what otherwise
consists of an accumulation of discrete and clearly defined elements, a picture in

which there is diminution but no real recession and one in which shading is used to
modulate small areas or individual objects but not as a means of overall interconnec-
tion. In sum, The Farm is, as opposed to the Far of Grain, an extraordinary achievement
in making a large composition on a small scale, in accreting a work that must be read
from point to point, giving equal pictorial weight to all its elements. Considered

alongside other pictures of the period, it gives early evidence of Miro's since amply
demonstrated capacity to work successfully on vastly different scales. This capacity is a

corollary to, or perhaps an extension of, the two strains in his work previously
identified as expressionist and decorative. The smaller, enumerative compositions
tend toward the expressionist and give vent most easily to Miro's fantasy, while the

larger scaled, more simplified works tend to the decorative and allow broader scope to

purely pictorial considerations such as color and abstracted shape.

By 1924 Miro seems to have mastered the lessons French painting had to teach

him — in part those of Cubist structure and in part those of coloristic refinement -and
during the next three years there issued from his brush more paintings than had been

produced in the previous ten. Two of these relate directly to I he l.nm and are
important both for their inherent quality and for the polish they broughl to the

expressionist-enumerative aspect of his art. They are The Tilled Field of 192 5 24 [10],

and Carnival of Harlequin of 1924-25 (12|. The former retains many of the elements of
The Farm — houses, trees, and animals — while simplifying the b,i< kground into two
flat, high-valued color are, is interrupted at the right by a wedge of darkei tonality
 Certain of the picture's elements are placed directly on the horizon created by the

division between these two areas, while others rise up through it without concealing it

in the way The Farm's buildings conceal its horizon. Although some of the objects

represented are shaded, shading is always internal to them and patterns such as those
of the furrows at the far right and the vertical striations in the left center foreground are

consistently contained within the clearly defined limits. In Carnival of Harlequin the

background is further simplified, while the remaining pictorial elements are reduced in

size and multiplied in number. Since these elements are less naturalistic than those in

The Tilled Field they tend less easily to be subordinated one to the other, moving in a

freer and more detached way across the surface of the canvas. Although the back-
ground is grayed and unifying in nature, the colors of the small objects seen upon it

tend toward primary blue, red, yellow, and white, giving a staccato pictorial liveliness

that well conveys the spirit of the title.

While the expressionist aspect of Miro's art, embodied in the fantasy of his forms and

their juxtapositions, was coming to perfection, the rival decorative tendency struck out

into new territory in one of the most extraordinary developments in twentieth-century

painting. Beginning in 1924 there appear canvases, of which the Portrait of Madame B
|11] is typical, in which the background is a single color, frequently yellow but
sometimes beige, gray, or another neutral hue. These monochrome grounds are

inflected by being brushed on in varying densities, and representational and abstract

shapes, including letters, words, and the finest of black lines, are floated against the

atmospheric result. The shapes and lines used are wholly contained within the con-
fines of the canvas, unlike those in The Farm and related pictures, and are manipulated
to provide a web of pictorial incident through which the background color fields can
be seen and by means of which they are controlled.
By 1925 Miro realized that pictorial incident could be reduced, allowing uninter-
rupted hue to speak more effectively, if the colors of his grounds were more intense,

more obviously applied, or both. Blue and brown had by then become his most
common ground colors, while the floating shapes tended to be executed in a thinly

brushed white, sometimes shaded into the ground atone or more sides, with touches of
red and yellow. The fine black lines that had characterized the earlier pictures

continued to appear. The danger for such compositions was that the pressure exerted
by the powerfully actuated grounds would swallow up the smaller forms, a weakening
that Miro almost always managed to avoid. The only precedent for the simplicity,

21 openness, and scale of the best of these impressive decorations is to be found in

Matisse's painting of the late 'teens, but it is a remote precedent indeed since Matisse
had used his coloristic breadth to wholly different effect. Perhaps the greatest of these
pictures by Miro is The Birth of the World [13], a monumental composition in which a

thin gray ground is washed on, leaving ample evidence of facture, including extensive
dripping. Across this aquatic atmosphere are floated an eccentric red circle with a

white tail, a black triangle, and other shapes and lines that manage by some minimal
magic to create an overwhelming visual and emotional impact. With this and related

pictures one realizes how completely Miro had mastered French painting. Indeed, it

becomes clear that the dual strains in his work identifiable from the beginning can, in

his maturity, be classified as French and Spanish, the former corresponding to the

decorative tendency toward simplicity, the latter to the expressionist tendency toward

multiplicity. Catalan that he is, Miro looks to two artistic traditions, both of which he
commands. Exceptionally for a great artist, he has resisted synthesizing these tradi-

tions, maintaining them in relative purity side by side down to his most recent work. In

this context, his attraction to the work of the French Dutchman, Van Gogh, takes on
special significance.

Throughout 1926 and 1927 Miro was preoccupied with his recent bold pictorial

discoveries. A series of landscapes represents his only attempt to paint in his ex-

pressionist manner during this time, and even they are heavily decorative in feeling.

Divided horizontally into two zones, they have few elements, frequently animal,
imposed on them. In Dog Barking at the Moon of 1926 [15], there is only a ladder,
joining the upper and lower zones without interrupting them, in addition to the dog
and the moon. The dark tonalities of Dog are further developed in Nude | 14 1 of the

same year, whose shapes are prophetically elaborated across a flat black ground. Like
Dog, The Hare (1927, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York) suppresses

surface incident, superimposing a dotted spiral, which occupies space without defin-

ing an object, on its two pictorial zones. The figure of the hare itself is modulated
coloristically, not so much to create three-dimensional form as to moderate its pit torial

presence and to spark the relatively somber ground, c onsisting of an intense orange

and a dark, rich purple thinly applied over another si mil.ir hue. I his sensuous* olorism
is most striking in the Landscape of 1927 [16], the lower /one of which is ,i deep,
velvety blue, the upper a rich red. Little is necessary in addition, and the small, widely

separated shapes of the rabbit and the flower provide .ill the pun< tuation required.

During I927 Miro produced a series of pic tures with mid- to dark valued brown
founds, looking like unpainted canvas, on top of which large white forms were
 brushed, usually with the addition of a few fine black lines. The best of these, such as

Circus Horse [17], show how little pictorial incident he needed to produce a powerful
aesthetic effect. He also reversed his tonalities and painted several works with dark
shapes against white grounds, many without apparent naturalistic reference and titled

simply Painting on White Ground.

Having, in four years of prolific work, brought himself to the very borders of

abstraction — some would say, having passed beyond them — Miro apparently felt the

need of refreshment from nonvisual sources, and his output of painting dropped

dramatically between 1928 and 1930 as he involved himself in the activities of the

Surrealists. Although he never subordinated his art to Surrealist principles, Surrealism

seems to have provided the fresh impetus he needed and to have freed him to follow
new paths.

The immediate pictorial result of Miro's contact with Surrealism is a small group of
pictures based mostly on seventeenth- and eighteenth-century compositions [see 19].

It is as if these older works were useful to him in evoking form, much the way Leonardo,
in the comment made much of by the Surrealists, had suggested that the creative

imagination could be spurred to find a landscape in a color-spattered wall. Miro's

pictures maintain the flat, horizontally divided backgrounds of the landscapes, but

impose on them a bewildering variety of shapes. Those shapes, generally biomorphic

and referring to human or animal forms, are rendered in fairly saturated colors applied

without inflection and relieved by large areas of white. Typical among them is The
Potato (1928, Celman collection, New York), which is dominated by a white
humanoid shape, raising an outsized hand and surrounded with fanciful, insectlike

forms. Although there is a return to more strident colorism in these works, Miro brings
off his complex and lively color counterpoint successfully.

A longer range effect of Surrealism on Miro was a fragmentation in his art. From the
late 1920s on, painting was only one of many activities for him, activities that came to
include the making of objects, sculpture, prints, and finally, ceramics and tapestry, as
well as wider experimentation with materials such as sandpaper and Masonite as

supports. Thus, while Miro's development up to that time can be followed with some
logic, from then on the diversity of his interests makes sequential development as such
largely irrelevant. One can only sample the variety of creative activity in which he is

engaged at any given moment, observing how successfully he seems to realize it. On
the one hand, ideas he might earlier have explored sequentially are developed side by

23 side, with pictures of many types painted simultaneously; on the other, there are
extended periods during which he abandons a given manner, only to have it turn up
again at some later date. While one can suggest thequality of hisart by dipping into this

maelstrom, one can only hint at its range. There can be no doubt that Surrealism's

emphasis on hazard and on the creative possibilities of materials traditionally regarded

as unaesthetic spoke powerfully to Miro. Having mastered the conventional painterly

means he had explored for something like fifteen years, he was clearly in search of new
worlds to conquer.
Surrealism seems also to have opened a way back to his Spanish roots, after years of
immersion in French painting, releasing within him a sensibility more brutal and more
openly powerful than that of the previous decade. His growing interest in incorporat-

ing tacks, rope, and other bold materials into his work, as well as in scumbling,
scraping, and eventually burning parts of his compositions can be seen in part as a

revolt against a learned (if sympathetic) tradition of artistic finesse. Surrealism thus

offered Miro not a pictorial or aesthetic program but a door opening into himself, a

means of nourishing part of his sensibility that must have seemed threatened with
starvation by the end of the 1920s. It suggested to him that art might be made from
materials not generally thought to belong to its realm, and that orthodoxy was not the

only path to salvation, if salvation meant complete expression of his creative self and
the achievement of aesthetic quality.

Directly relevant to Miro's interest in Surrealism is his love of poetry and the role it

plays in his painting. This has two aspects: the titles he gives his pictures and the
appearance of words, phrases, and even poems within pictures themselves. As to the

titles —those from the late 1930s, such as "A Drop of Dew Falling from the Wing of a

Bird Awakens Rosalie Asleep in the Shadow of a Cobweb" [30], are particularly

evocative —there is no doubt that they and the images to which they are attached are

intimately associated in Miro's mind. The association is Miro's, however, and aside
from clues as to the associations that particular forms in a given painting may have fol

the artist, a Miro title has no more significance than the title of any other painting
That is, the character and quality of the picture are carried by its image and the title

must be looked on largely as a denomination. Miro himself has stated that his titles

grow with the development of the picture, and while they may result from .1 related

creative urge, "the title is not a literal illustration of the pi< lure, nor is the pi< lure an

illustration of the title" (Jacques Dupin).

The words and phrases within Miro's pictures bear roughly this same relationship to
the compositions of whic h they are part. While they may have personal aSSO< iations
Fig. 11

Miro
Seated Woman, 1932 [20]

for Miro, those associations remain private to him. Their aesthetic meaning is limited to

their function as pictorial elements, as Miro himself has clearly stated

— "It's the plastic

role of the word that interests me." Thus, the "meaning" of even as elaborate a poem as
appears in Le corps de ma brune. .
.* (Hermanos collection, New York) is its pictorial

function, and the importance of that meaning is the success with which the pictorial

function is fulfil led. The fact that Miro is capable of distend ing the word poursuit in the

picture Un oiseau poursuit une abeille et la baisse (Private collection, France) to

suggest the motion of a bird has no more importance than that Beethoven can evoke a
thunderstorm using an orchestra. The meaning and success of the one is purely

pictorial, of the other purely musical. Again, one can listen with profit to Miro himself:

"I have always evaluated the poetic content according to its plastic possibilities."

Miro's Surrealism of the early 1930s is heavily indebted to Picasso's work of the late

'20s. A series of oils on paper produced during 1931, for example, clearly reflects

sculpture studies and paintings made by Picasso from 1926 to 1928.

Picasso's sculpture studies consist of intersecting patterns of black lines punctuated

with dots at the points at which they cross, while the paintings develop broad linear
patterns that move freely across geometrically composed color areas to which they are

not directly related. In his works on paper of this time, Miro first establishes a pattern of

detached color areas, generally rectangular, then develops a broad linear pattern on
top of them, with dots at intersections or at the ends of lines. While this independent

motion of color and line was used by others, notably Klee, it is to Picasso that Miro
seems most indebted for it. In 1932 he executed a group of small paintings on wood
that also clearly refer to his compatriot. These establish clearly defined, flat color areas

covering the entire surface of the board, on top of which bony configurations reminis-
cent of Picasso's 1 928 Design for a Monument are developed. Among the best of these

is Seated Woman [20, fig. 1 1 ], which clearly recalls Picasso's 1930 Seated Bather (fig.

12) not least in the boniness of its forms. Miro no doubt admired the restraint of

Picasso's controlled and classical Surrealism — if Surrealism it was —and found it more
suited to his own purposes than the more literary and fantastic creations of Dali,

Magritte, and others.

Fig. 12
During 1933 and 1934 Miro produced a group of ambitious works that grew out of
Pablo Picasso (Spanish, 1881-1973)
Seated Bather, 1930 the small paintings on wood of 1932, suppressing the figuration of the latter by
Collection, The Museum of Modern Art,
New York
Mrs. Simon Guggenheim Fund *l have chosen to keep a few of Miro's more poetic titles in French, feeling that to
© S.P.A.D.E.M., Paris/V.A.C.A., New York translate them would trivialize them.
dispersing their forms. In these canvases, most of them quite large, the flat color

backgrounds of the earlier works are softened and modulated so as to become

atmospheric. Mostly quite dark in tonality and very close-valued, these grounds
sometimes appear monochrome but more often have clearly defined areas of different
hues that shade off into one another. The forms floated on top of them are organic, often

bony, and are detached from one another and sometimes voided. As in the smaller

paintings, they tend to change hue where they overlap, a coloristic equivalent to the

dots at the linear intersections of the 1931 oils on paper. Thus, a black form overlapping

a white one may turn blue in the area of overlap. The problem for such compositions is

that the pictorial pressure exerted by their powerful grounds is extremely difficult to

counteract. Forms of sharply contrasting hue and value exert the most effective

counterpressure. White and red shapes tend to hold the pictures together most firmly,

while black, of which Miro used a good deal, works less well. The paintings with
relatively fewer forms floating at some remove from one another can also be prob-

lematical, as Miro himself seems to have realized by 1934, when he tended to increase

the number of elements in the pictures. A work such as Hirondelle Amour (Museum of
Modern Art, New York) is particularly successful since the cursive pattern of the words
helps connect the more abstract shapes. At their best, these paintings rank among the

finest in Miro's decorative style, although they are decorative with a difference. Their
dark, intense —one is tempted to say brooding —colors mitigate their otherwise deco-
rative character and contrast with the coloristic lyricism of the works of the mid-1 920s.
In the latter half of the 1930s there is a notable return of expressionist fierceness in

Miro's work. At times this takes the form of violent or threatening subject matter, at

times it consists of the introduction of crude materials such as nails and rope or a

preference for roughened surfaces and coarse paint application. Both these strains are

represented during 1935-36, the former in a group of small works on copper or

Masonite. Invariably representing grotesque and attenuated figures set in ,i lands< ape,

these works play light foregrounds against very dark backgrounds thai suggest nighl

skies [see 23 j. The figures themselves stand out against this darkness in modulated
reds, yellows, and ochers, managing — either by the placement ol then red limbs

against yellow halations, or merely by their being set off against the dark ground to

Kive the impression that they are glowing or burning.

If the paintings on copper seem to be less restrained versions ol the small figurative

works on wood of 1932, a series of moderate si/ed pic lines on Masonile ol l

(
) U, r.

more dire< tly related to the large canvases of 19 u 54. rhe warm, mottled surface ol
 —

the Masonite gives Miro all the inflected ground he needs, and on it he floats black

shapes, with occasional red or white patches, that recall those of the earlier works but

are brushier and less sharply delimited [see 24]. Since the ground pressure from the

Masonite is less than that from the modulated paint of 1933-34, these pictures are less

daring but generally more cohesive in their achievement. Occasional areas of heavy
impasto suggest crudeness in this relatively refined context and Miro seems con-
sciously to be trying to violate anything that might be construed as beautiful in this and
most of his work of the period.

The peak of this aggressive trend came in 1937-38, partly in pictures that seem
scrawled and daubed rather than painted. In them, everything is done to obliterate the

idea of finesse of execution, and even the colors are often crude either individually

brown or greenish brown are not uncommon —or in their juxtapositions. More impor-
tant is the iconographical ferocity embodied particularly in three paintings: the gigan-

tic Reaper, painted for the Spanish Pavilion of the Paris World's Fair in 1937 and since
destroyed; the Decoration of a Nursery (1937, Weil collection, St. Louis); and the
Woman's Head of 1938 (Minneapolis Museum of Art). In both of the latter, distorted

figures, their mouths reduced to lines with predatory-looking teeth, are rendered in

black inflected with red, green, and yellow against a scumbled blue ground. Whether
or not Miro was responding to the threatening political climate around him, as has
often been suggested, these works seem the equivalent in his oeuvre of Guernica in

Picasso's. In both cases, the pictures are impressive insofar as one identifies with the

world events apparently referred to in them, or with the emotions seemingly expressed
by the figures represented. In both cases, however, the message of violence and
anguish overwhelms the aesthetic vehicle in which it is embodied, undermining the
works' ultimate artistic quality.

Miro's masterpiece of these years, and a picture that successfully transmutes the real

emotions of other works into aesthetic terms, is the 1937 Still Life with Old Shoe [26].

Unique in his oeuvre both iconographically and stylistically, it represents four

objects — a shoe, a bottle, a fragmentary loaf of bread, and a potato with a fork stuck

into it —on a table top whose far edge makes an horizon through the center of the
painting. The background is occupied by three ameboid black shapes (one of which
echoes the form of the bottle) floating against, and at times interpenetrating, color areas

with indistinct edges. Rendered in mixed yellows, turquoises, and purples, these areas
produce an out-of-focus phosphorescence against which the foreground objects are
27 seen. Those objects themselves are rendered in black and in more intense values of the
 I

background colors, applied in somewhat smaller and more clearly delimited areas.

The way in which the reds, blues, greens, and yellows are placed against one
another —an extremely sophisticated development of the color within the inflections

small objects the paintings of the mid-1920s —

in a dematerialization of the results in

objects they define and makes the painting seem to be glowing with a disembodied
intensity that may be unique in the art of this century.

As St/7/ Life with Old Shoe demonstrates, Miro is too intensely an artist to capitulate

completely to such external pressures as were driving him during the late 1930s, and

he continued to produce pictures of great refinement. Two of these, Uneetoilecaresse

le sein d'une negresse [29] and Self-Portrait II [28], both of 1938, place discrete forms
in various colors against flat black grounds. If the blackness of the ground was meant to
embody some of the sensibility found in other works of the period, Miro's painterly
talents intercepted that purpose and both pictures are not only powerful, but are
statements of great beauty. The forms in each are clearly defined and carefully related
one to the other, resulting in a decorative pattern of the most sophisticated sort.

A group of paintings on Celotex from 1937, notably The Circus [25], seems to have
provided a lyrical safety valve for Miro. These hark back to the early 1930s in that their

colors— the case of The Circus blue (sometimes whitened),

in red, yellow, and

green — are floated against the rough ground of the Celotex and a linear pattern is

drawn on top of them, sometimes following their contours and sometimes violating

them. The linear pattern draws the entire composition together, foreshadowing devel-
opments of around 1940. The first definite signs of those developments are some
paintings on burlap of 1939, the heavily textured burlap providing a light-inflected

ground that is more aggressive than that of the Celotex. Because the ground asserts

itself so strongly, the paint placed on it is more closely identified with it, and the effect is

less atmospheric than that of the earlier work. Typical of this group is A Drop of Dew
Falling from the Wing of a Bird Awakens Rosalie Asleep in the Shadow of a Cobweb
[30]. In it and the other works of its type one first sees the forms that were to

predominate in Miro's work for some fifteen years and are reflec ted even in quite rec cut

compositions. Dabs of paint roughly applied on the surface of the burlap are org.) ni/ec

into patterns by a web of lines drawn across them. The shapes created at the inter sec

tions of these lines are frequently filled, often in bl.u k but sometimes in l olor, ami
the result is a closely interwoven pattern that is at one e more c oherent and belter able
to stand up to the active ground than the linear patterns in the paintings of l
(
) \ 1-34.

28 The fantasy oi the animalistic shapes in A Drop of Dew . . ., as well as the roughnessof
 the burlap and the unsubtle black-red color combination that dominates the picture, is

married to a delicacy of line and deep feeling for all-over decorative pattern that

demonstrate how Miro has increasingly been able to reconcile the two strains in his art,

not synthesizing them to produce a third transmuted style, but letting them speak side
by side in the same work without doing violence to either. Moreover, he finds ways to
make elements of one sensibility result in effects of the other. Thus, the heavy black of
A Drop of Dew . . . is ameliorated by the aggressive texture of the burlap it covers into a
velvety softness.

By the early 1940s Miro had stopped painting altogether, and he was not to resume
until the very end of the Second World War. During 1940 and 1941, however, he
produced the series known as Constellations [see 31 and 32], executed in gouache and
oil on paper, apotheosizing his concerns of the previous decade. As if to maintain his

sanity in the face of world events, he turned to these small-scale compositions, the best

of which, while delicate and full of fantasy, are of great pictorial strength. Miro first

roughened the surface of the paper on which he worked, then covered it with washes

of atmospheric color. On top of this he developed patterns of thin lines and circles and
other shapes in black, blue, red, green, yellow, and sometimes white. The grounds are
at their best when they are most neutral in hue — brown, for example —and are most
subtly modulated. Those that are too bright in hue or too abrupt in transition interfere

with the patterns on top of them. The patterns, in turn, are best when they are densest

and most various. When they are sparse, the grounds tend to take over, unbalancing

compositions by destroying their rhythms. Again, one sees Miro giving full reign to the

expressionist aspect of his nature, in the fanciful figures and faces that constellate out of

the surface patterns, side by side with its decorative aspect, seen in the subtle

painterliness of the grounds and the overall decorative mastery with which he manipu-
lates his compositions.

Since the Second World War Miro's work has continued to explore various direc-

tions, and one finds periods of two or three years during which he is prolific as a

painter, then periods of equal length during which he paints almost not at all. Gen-
erally speaking, his painting has developed toward greater simplicity and larger scale,

the latter perhaps encouraged by commissions he has received for sizable murals.

Beginning in 1944 Miro developed the manner for which he is now probably best
known, a manner that is basically a large-scale development of the Constellations. An
excellent example of the type is The Harbor of 1 945 [33]. Here the ground is composed
29 of a pale gray wash applied sufficiently thinly that the canvas shows through in many
areas, giving the effect of a subtle, yielding atmosphere. On top of this ground Miro
develops a pattern of lines and shapes that seem, unlike those of the Constellations, to
represent a single figure. This major configuration embraces well over half the canvas,

and the black shape at the center is large enough to focus the entire composition. There
is, thus, a certain holistic quality about the picture permitting it to be grasped almost at

a glance, unlike the Constellations, which must be read from point to point. Although
the major color is black, most often used to fill in areas created by intersecting lines,

fairly flat primaries — red, blue, green, and yellow —also appear. The success of pic-

tures such as The Harbor depends on very much the same factors as the success of the

Constellations or indeed, some of the works of the mid-1 920s. The grounds must be
unified and carefully modulated, although they need not be as reticent as that in The
Harbor —witness the intense blue ground of the mural painted for the Terrace Plaza

Hotel in Cincinnati. More important, the drawn configurations must be bold enough,
large enough in scale, and developed across enough of the surface of the picture to

resist the ground pressures. Generally speaking, the more shapes are interconnected

the better, and the exact relationship of filled in and colored area to line, and of areas to

one another, is crucial in holding the composition together. Pictures in which forms are
not sufficiently bold in scale, or in which they are too widely separated one from the
other, disintegrate from lack of coherence. Miro continued to develop compositions in

this manner through the early 1950s. As they developed they became increasingly free,

and more and more one sees unbounded areas of paint, as in Woman and Little Cirl in
Front of the Sun [34], or roughened and scumbled color areas modulating between the

ground and the pattern drawn on it, as in Painting |35|.

At the same time as he continued to work in this Constellation -related manner, Miro

developed another strain in his painting, one that became most obvious beginning
about 1949. In it, line is thickened and roughened to the point at which it becomes
calligraphic shape. No longer uniquely black, lines may be rendered in color or

surrounded with circles, stars, or other elements that are also tinted. Occasionally
black shapes are surrounded with colored halations or the ground color is modified
immediately behind them. This gives a curious atmospheric effect not unlike the

phosphorescence of the Still Life with Old Shoe, but employed more abstractly. In

other pictures, enlarged shapes are rendered fl.it against ,i ll.it ground, ,\nd from timetO
time light shapes are presented against dark grounds. Some of these ( ompositions are
extremely bold, and in the absence of sue h relieving delu a< y .is may be provided by a

fine linear pattern they can tend toward stridency and vulgarity. Miro uses dotted
 patterns to mitigate the heaviness of some of the canvases, but even these are not

always successful and the effect can be overburdened.

Although Miro ceased to paint for the last years of the 1950s, he began to be
particularly prolific again in 1960 and there emerged from his studio works of startling
simplicity and novelty, whose principal pictorial referents are his own pictures of

1924-27. The Red Disk of 1960 [37] represents the expressionist side of this develop-
ment, and one cannot but imagine that it is heavily under the influence of Abstract

Expressionism. A huge off-white splatter, dense toward its center but dripped and

splashed at its periphery, all but covers a black ground. An intense red eccentric circle

is placed to the right of center, and the white area is further relieved by small patches of

yellow and other colors, as well as by fine black drawn "Miroisms." Although bold in

its forms and conceived and executed on a large scale, the picture depends for its

success on considerable coloristic subtlety. The fact, for instance, that the splash is an
off-white softens it, allowing it to modulate between the red circle and the black
ground, relieving the heaviness that might result from their immediate juxtaposition
and unifying the entire composition.
More surprising still are the three huge canvases known as Blue /, //, and ///,

executed in 1961. These pictures consist of rich, modulated blue grounds on top of

which are placed the fewest possible black and red elements. The sparest of them, Blue
/// (Pierre Matisse Gallery, New York), leaves almost the entire ground bare to speak for

itself, while in the most powerful, Blue II [38], a series of irregular black circles entering

the canvas midway along its right edge is brought to an emphatic halt by a vertical red

accent near the left side. The authority, austerity, and decorative scope of these pictures
apotheosizes the reductivist trend first fully apparent in 1927. The extremity of that

trend is represented by the huge triptych, painted in 1968, known as Mural Painting for

the Cell of a Solitary Man (Fundaciojoan Miro, Barcelona). Each canvas consists of the
finest of black lines wending its irregular way across a canvas of the starkest white.

Miro tried many variations on such reductivism during the 1960s. In one of the most

successful, The Flight of the Dragonfly before the Sun (Mellon Collection, Upperville,
Virginia), also of 1968, a huge red circular shape dominates the center of a canvas
brushed out to its edges with an inflected blue, while the upper right corner holds a

small black circle and a short black line. To relieve the pictorial intensity Miro has left

white halos around the red and black elements. (A related, more complex, composi-
tion also of great presence is the 1972 Toward the Escape [43].) Another picture of
31 1968, The Passage of the Migratory Bird (Pierre Matisse Gallery, New York), relieves its
blue ground with the shortest of black lines embedded in an irregular white oval at the

upper right. Still other compositions scatter stenciled letters and numbers across
washy, open grounds of two or three hues.
At the same time he was producing these daring compositions, Miro continued to

enlarge the scale of the pictures dominated by black linear patterns. As the patterns

thickened, the areas they enclosed became increasingly coruscated and obviously

applied, the color more intense. Working with ideas first developed in his postwar
pictures, Miro created series of connected and bounded shapes across monochrome
grounds, but since the shapes tended to be entirely filled in with high-valued color, the
paintings sometimes strangled pictorially for lack of air. When the opaque shapes of

such pictures were placed before atmospheric grounds, however, as in Woman before

an Eclipse with Her Hair Disheveled by the Wind [40], they could succeed majesti-
cally. During the 1960s and '70s Miro has increasingly permitted his canvases to be
taken over by large areas of matte black [see 45]. These areas occasionally take on the

shapes of predatory creatures, but most often are used simply for their pictorial value.

They are of such power as to be extremely difficult to relieve, and when they occupy
almost the entire surface of the canvas, they risk making the composition inert. When
they are relieved with white or other colors, however, or are dispersed across the

canvas, they can be made to function effectively.

During the mid-1970s Miro has also experimented with controlled burning of his

canvases, integrating the shapes thus created with those on the remaining painted

surface. Daring as the idea of burning may seem, the reality is problematical, allowing

the artist insufficient control over the aesthetic result, which changes with each surface
against which the picture is shown. Generally speaking, one feels the physical pres-

ence of paint —which is broadly spattered, splashed, or roughly applied — more in

Miro's work of the late 1960s and '70s than in any of his previous efforts. Moreover, he
has brought to his cruder expressionist manner the large scale formerly reserved for his

decorations. In all of this one senses a powerful drive, .ill the more remarkable in <i man
in his seventies, to give scope not only to his paintings but to every i<u et of his creative

personality. That drive is characterized by the extraordinary willingness to experiment

and receptiveness new ideas that have informed Miro's art from the beginning
to

It has not been uncommon recently for critics of Miro's work to say that the postwai
years, particularly the last two decades, have seen a qualitative falling oft in that work
and that one must look to the early Miro for major a< hievement. No doubt this is due m
part to the range of Miro's efforts during this period, efforts, it must be admitted, not
 always of consistent quality. This range has distracted attention from his painting and
from the level that painting has been able to maintain. Moreover, the dissemination of
Miro's efforts through prints, both those of his own devising and those produced

commercially, has resulted in a familiarity that has bred not a little contempt. But the
real villain is probably insufficient editing. It is not uncommon for an older artist to be
more lenient with the number and character of works he lets out into the world than a

younger one, and one suspects that Miro has permitted himself this indulgence. Editing
becomes all the more necessary to a man whose age dictates the conservation of his

energies, permitting him the intensity characteristic of first-rate art in relatively fewer
works. Despite all this, the fact is that Miro continues to paint works equal to, indeed
often surpassing, any he has ever produced. If that fact is temporarily obscured by other

circumstances, it will, in the long run, become triumphantly apparent.

If one hallmark of aesthetic development during the last century has been experi-

ment of the most diverse kind, leading to the incorporation into art of both materials

and effects not previously thought to belong to it, Miro is a very microcosm of that

development. Protean in his interests and production, his openness to every visual

form and effect exemplifies the richness of the creative soil from which his work
springs. If not all of his experiments have succeeded, the failures have at least enriched
that soil, assisting the growth and flowering of the successes. By now it is clear that,

with Matisse and Picasso, Miro is one of the three giants of European modernism in this

century, and, indeed, his achievement may be even more sustained and more varied
than that of his compatriot. That achievement, forged entirely in its own terms, shares

both Matisse's French fluency and Picasso's Spanish expressionism, and stands easily

alongside the best of both.

33
 MIRO AND THE UNITED STATES
Judi Freeman

Perhaps no twentieth-century European painter has received greater acclaim in the

United States than Joan Miro. Americans were among his most ardent supporters
during his early years in Paris, and American private collectors, museums, and
galleries have continued to purchase and exhibit his work throughout the last half-

century.

Recognition of Miro's talent came slowly, with much of his early commercial and
critical success resulting from the enthusiasm of American expatriates living in Paris,

most notably Ernest Hemingway. Aided by the poet Evan Shipman and the writer John
Dos Passos, Hemingway bought The Farm [9] in 1925 for five thousand francs, which
he claimed that he and his friends had collected in local bars and cafes. He later wrote
that The Farm "has in it all that you feel about Spain when you are there and all that you
feel when you are away and you cannot go there."
1
Hemingway's acquisition of The
Farm marked the beginning of a lasting friendship with Miro, which was subsequently
commemorated in Death in the Afternoon:

. . . sitting in the heavy twilight at Miro's; vines as far as you can see, cut by hedges
and the road; the railroad and the sea with pebbly beach and tall papyrus grass.
There were earthen jars for the different years of wine, twelve feet high, set side by

side in a dark room; a tower on the house to climb to in the evening to see the

vines, the villages and the mountains and to listen and hear how quiet it was. In

front of the barn a woman held a duck whose throat she had cut and stroked him
gently while a little girl held up a cup to catch the blood for making gravy. The
duck seemed very contented and when they put him down (the blood all in the

cup) he waddled twice and found that he was dead. We ate him later, stuffed and
roasted; and many other dishes, with the wine of that year before and the great year
four years before that and other years that I lost track of while the long arms of a

mechanical fly chaser that wound by clock work went round and round and we
talked French. We all knew Spanish better.
2

News of Miro's activities in France rapidly crossed the Atlantic. At a time when his

work was attracting little notice in the French press, it was featured in a 1926 issue of

the New York-based Little Review. The first of Miro's paintings to come to this

continent, Le renversement, 1924 [The Somersault, Yale University Art Gallery, New
Haven), was acquired by Marcel Duchamp's and Katherine S. Dreier's Societe

Anonyme and prominently displayed in their 1926 International Fxhibition of Modern

35 Art at the Brooklyn Museum. Miro's inclusion in this exhibition, along with other artists
associated with the growing Surrealist circle in France, received considerable attention

in this country. American collectors and dealers traveled to Paris in increasing num-
bers to view paintings by the Surrealists, especially Miro's work, which had been given
particular emphasis by several American critics. Henry McBride declared in his

column in The Dial of 1928:

No other name, during the winter, had come across the seas with such insistence,

and nothing came across with the name — no pictures. If he really were worth
bothering about, it would be necessary, it seemed, to make another of those fatigu-

ing trips to Paris in order to do it there. A traversee "was clearly indicated," as the

fortune tellers say, and so, being essentially dutiful, I went. 3

One particular painting, Dog Barking at the Moon [15], caught McBride's attention
and was purchased for the Gallery of Living Art in New York, which he had founded
with A. E. Gallatin. Exhibited in 1929, first in the Museum of Modern Art's temporary
exhibition space at 680 Fifth Avenue and then at the Brummer Gallery on Fifty-seventh

Street, it was initially ridiculed by the press, as was Miro's first U.S. solo show, at the

Valentine Gallery in New York. Lloyd Goodrich, reviewing the latter in 1930, observed
that Miro's "is a gay and ingenious talent, but scarcely a profound one" and compared
his work to the popular comic strip Krazy Kat.
4
More positive appraisals of Miro's work,

however, were also starting to appear in reviews by American critics in the early 1930s.

An Art News reviewer declared that one of Miro's solo shows was not "to be missed by
any gallery-goer with any relish for the drift of modern art. Miro is the enfant terrible of

the moment and should be seen." s

Although Miro subsequently disassociated himself from the Surrealists, it was his

participation in their exhibitions and activities during the mid- and late 1920s that had
sparked American interest in his work, and he continued to be linked with Surrealism
throughout the 1930s. The galleries that featured his painting were those that tended to

favor artists from the Surrealist circle. Miro's 1930 solo show al the Valentine Gallery

followed an exhibition there of paintings by Giorgio de Chirico, considered the < hut
precursor of the Surrealist movement. Two months later Miro had a solo show ,it the

Arts Club of Chicago, which again followed exhibitions of Surrealist art. I lis paintings

were also featured in the 1931 Newer Super-Realism exhibition al the Wadsworth
Atheneum in Hartford and in the 19 W> I antastit Ait, Dada, Surrealism, organized by
Alfred H. Barr, Jr., at the Museum of Modern Art. At the same tunc Mim, more than
other Surrealist artists, was being given solo exhibitions in New York, ( Iik .ik<>, S.m
 —

Francisco, Los Angeles, Hollywood, and Honolulu. This increasing prominence stimu-

lated both museums and private collectors to acquire his work. Pierre Matisse became
his dealer in 1932 and has held regular exhibitions of his work ever since. Several of the
gallery's patrons — including Walter R. Chrysler, Saidie A. May, and A. E. Gallatin

belonged to the growing circle of individuals who were developing significant private

collections of Miro's work. The director of the Wadsworth Atheneum, A. Everett

("Chick") Austin, Jr., who was an early supporter of Surrealism in this country, bought

several of Miro's paintings for the museum, and the Museum of Modern Art acquired a

number of them from its Surrealist-related shows.

Miro's popularity in the U.S. intensified during World War II. His first major museum
retrospective, at the Museum of Modern Art in 1941, was a huge success. The first

monograph on the artist in any language, written by James Johnson Sweeney, appeared
with the exhibition and confirmed Miro's independence from the Surrealists. Miro's

most important work of the war years —the Constellation series —also contributed to

his American reputation. He had begun the Constellations in 1940 at the home of the

American architect Paul Nelson in Normandy, and they were the only possessions he
carried with him when the war forced him to flee from France to Spain. All but one of

the twenty-three Constellations were sent to the Museum of Modern Art via diplomatic
pouch. 6 The museum passed them on to Pierre Matisse, who exhibited the series in

1945. Every work in the exhibition was sold, and most still remain in American
collections. One result of this continued attention was a commission to paint a mural
for the restaurant at the Terrace Plaza Hotel in Cincinnati. To fulfill the commission,

Miro came to the United States for the first time in 1947, staying in the New York studio
of painter Carl Holty, whom he had previously met in Paris. He worked on the mural

there from February until October.

America's "force and vitality" made a strong impression on Miro, and he commented
7
that "to me the real skyscrapers express force as do the pyramids in Egypt." With the
writer Ruthven Todd, he rode on the New York subway from 14th Street to 125th Street,

a ride that Todd recalled several years later:

... it shook, rattled and banged as if its behavior could persuade the passengers

that they were travelling at a much greater speed than actually they were doing.
Miro suffered the noisy and uncomfortable ride in compulsory silence. As we
climbed the stairs to the exit on 125th Street, he turned a serious face toward me.

37 "We go back on the autobus, yes, Todd?" he asked anxiously.*

Miro maintained an active schedule and consequently absorbed varied aspects of
American culture. His longtime friend and collector, Josep Lluis Sert, the Spanish

architect he had met in Paris in the late 1920s, entertained Miro and his family at his

home on Long Island. Sert recently recounted some of Miro's reactions to American
life:

I remember his impressions and excitement with such things as Times Square,

and his enthusiasm with the "youthful" side of this country, such as the games,
circus and other events at Madison Square Garden. The Chinese Theatre in

Chinatown was also a special event for Miro, and we visited it often. We were often
in the company of mutual friends like Fernand Leger, Marcel Duchamps, Alexander
Calder and his family who we saw frequently in Roxbury; and we also saw James
Johnson Sweeney and his wife Laura. 9

American art was of particular interest to Miro. In an interview during the trip, he
observed, "I admire the American painters greatly. I especially like their enthusiasm

and freshness. This I find inspiring. They would do well to free themselves from
Europe's influence." 10
Miro had previously made etchings and drypoints at Stanley

William Hayter's Atelier 17 in Paris, and while in New York he produced several

etchings in Hayter's American studio." Among the various artists he met there were
Arshile Gorky and his wife, who entertained Miro at their Union Square studio. One of
their guests that evening, Ethel Schwabacher, recorded the spirited exchange that took

place:

After supper we sat about the enormous low table. Gorky offered wine in a bottle

and without glasses. With reversed hand and arm bent sharply at the elbow he
raised the flask to his lips, and tilting his head back, drank deeply from the curved
spout. Then he passed the flask. No one could manage it, the wine spilled, faces

were dripping, laughter mixed with the wine. Gaily Miro took the flask, s.it straight,

his legs firmly planted wide apart, then with gesture of bravado ,\iu\ virtuosity, a<

complished the feat. Waves of applause greeted him. Now there were requests for

song. Gorky sang the wailing trills and arpeggios of the I .isl, songs of Armenia and
Georgian Russia, and Miro countered with ( atalan songs, ( lose in spirit, high

keyed, ringing, intensely melancholy."

Miro reflected in an interview on the tiring pace of his days in New York:

Well here in New York I cannot live the life I w.ml to. I here ,ire too many appoint
 merits, too many people to see, and with so much going on I become too tired to

paint. ... I absolutely detest openings and nearly all the parties. They are com-
mercial, "political," and everyone talks so much. They give me the "willies". . . .

The sports! I have a passion for baseball. Especially the night games. I go to them as

often as I can. Equally with baseball, I am mad about hockey — ice hockey. I went to

all the games I could. . .

.' 3

Miro returned to Spain with one tangible souvenir of the United States: a collection of

American sidewalk toys.

Miro did not visit the United States again until May 1959, twelve years after his first

trip. In the intervening years, several important collections of his work had been
formed. G. David Thompson, Mr. and Mrs. James W. Alsdorf, Morton Newman, and
Larry Aldrich, to name just a few, had amassed sizable collections representing all

periods of Miro's painting. This increased collecting of his work, in addition to

continual exhibitions at galleries in many American cities (notably the Perls Galleries

in New York), unquestionably provided the impetus for the Museum of Modern Art's

second retrospective of Miro's work, which prompted his 1959 trip. He also visited

Cambridge to see his friend Sert, who had succeeded Walter Gropius as dean of
Harvard's School of Architecture. In 1950, at the urging of Gropius, Miro had been

commissioned to paint a mural for Harkness Commons in Harvard's Graduate Center.

Nine years after the mural was installed, a ceramic version by Miro and the ceramist

Josep Llorens Artigas replaced the original canvas, which was given to the Museum of

Modern Art. In 1959 Miro also traveled to Washington, D.C., to be presented the
$10,000 Guggenheim International Award — for his 1958 murals of Night and Day for

the UNESCO Building in Paris — by President Eisenhower, who showed Miro one of his

own paintings, a mountain scene. 14

When asked during this trip about what he found
most interesting in America, he responded: "The young people. You feel it, you sense
it, a breaking-through, interest, excitement, activity in art. It is in Spain with the

younger generation, too. After the war, for a while, they seemed completely flat. Now
they are alert and alive, though with less freedom of expression there than here." is

Miro's ties to America became more evident in his art at the beginning of the 1960s.

In 1961 he painted three monumental canvases: Blue I (Galerie Maeght, Paris), Blue II

[38], and Blue III (Pierre Matisse Gallery, New York). The paintings marked a return to

his style of the 1920s, a revival that was probably inspired by his exposure to American
abstract painting. His closeness to this country clearly grew stronger in this decade; he
39 returned to the United States three times. At the time of his trip in 1961, approximately
half of his paintings were in American collections.' 6 During this visit, he stayed with
Sert and completed a mural for his Cambridge home. He also traveled to New York in

conjunction with the exhibition of recent paintings and ceramics that introduced his

Blue series at the Pierre Matisse Gallery.

Since his last visit here in 1968, to receive an honorary degree from Harvard, Miro
has undertaken several U.S. commissions, including a mural for the Ulrich Museum of
Art at Wichita State University in Kansas; an outdoor sculpture for Chicago; tapestries
for the World Trade Center, New York; and, most recently, a tapestry for the East

Building of the National Gallery of Art. He has been honored with numerous ex-

hibitions at major museums across the nation and has been given frequent one-man
shows at Pierre Matisse and other galleries.

Miro's link with this country has remained strong and constant. His painting exerted

a profound influence on the Abstract Expressionists, particularly Gorky and Pollock,

and, in turn, his work was stimulated by their innovations. Americans have collected
his work with undiminished devotion since the early 1930s. A substantial portion of his

painting from the 1910s and 1920s is owned by American collectors and some of the

finest painted works from his subsequent years figure prominently in American collec-
tions. His vast production of lithographs has made acquisition of his work possible for

an increased number of Americans and has permitted greater exposure to his work.
Although Miro enjoys wide recognition from Japan to his native Catalonia, his recep-

tion has been, perhaps, greatest of all in the United States.

 Notes 1. Ernest Hemingway, "The Farm," 9. Letter to the author from Josep Lluis
Cahiers 1-4 (1934):
d'art, nos. 28. Sert, July 12, 1979.

2. Ernest Hemingway, Death in the 10. Lee, "Interview," p. 67.

Afternoon (New York and London:
11.Joann Moser, Atelier 17, exhibition
Charles Scribner's Sons, 1953), pp.
catalog (Madison, Wise: Elvehjem Art
449-50.
Center, University of Wisconsin at

3. Henry McBride, "Modern Art," The Madison, 1977), p. 31.

Dial 85, no. 6 (December 1928): 526.

12. Ethel K. Schwabacher, Arshile Cor-
4. Lloyd Goodrich, "November Ex- ky (New York: Macmillan for the
hibitions," Arts Magazine 17 (Novem- Whitney Museum of American Art,
ber 1930): 119. See also, "Miro's Dog 1957), pp. 122-23.
Barks While McBride Bites," Art Digest
13. Lee, "Interview," p. 66.
4 (December 15, 1929): 5ff.

14. Miro praised the painting as "very

5. "Miro Exhibition: Valentine Gallery,"
poetic and sensitive." "President Eisen-
Art News 29 (October 25, 1930): 11.
hower Presents Award to Miro, Spanish
6. Interview with Pierre Matisse, New Artist," New York Times, May 19, 1959,
York, May 25, 1979. p. 15.

7. Francis Lee, "Interview with Miro," 15. Aline B. Saarinen, "A Talk with Miro
Possibilities, no. 1 (Winter 1947-48): about His Art," New York Times, May
67. 24, 1959, p. 17.

8. Ruthven Todd, "Miro in New York: A 16. Jacques Dupin, loan Miro: Life and
Reminiscence," The Malahat Review 1 Work (New York: Abrams, 1962),
(January 1967): 80-81. passim.

41
 1

CHRONOLOGY
Judi Freeman

1893 April 20 —Joan Miro born to Michel Miro Adzerias, a goldsmith, and Dolores Ferra,

pasaje del Credito, 4, Barcelona.

1900 Attends school in the calle Ragomir, Barcelona. In evenings, takes drawing lessons
with Sr. Civil.

1905 Fills sketchbooks, chiefly with drawings of nature, during visits to his maternal grand-
parents in Tarragona and Palma de Majorca.

1907 Studies business at a Barcelona school for a brief period. Subsequently attends Escuela
Oficial de Bellas Artes de la Lonja in Barcelona and is influenced by two teachers,
Modesto Urgell and Jose Pasco.
1910 Abandons art studies and takes job as clerk with a Barcelona business.
191 Contracts typhoid fever. Convalesces at his parents' home in Montroig, a town outside
Barcelona.

1912 Enrolls in Francesco Calf's Escola d'Art in Barcelona. Sketches street scenes, the

harbor, the circus, and cabarets. Meets the painter E. C. Ricart and the ceramist Josep
Llorens Artigas. Sees Impressionist, Fauve, and Cubist paintings for the first time at the

Galerie Dalmau, Barcelona. Makes first oil paintings.

1915 Graduates from Gall's school. With Ricart, shares first studio, at Baja San Pedro, 51,
Barcelona. Participates in drawing sessions with members of the Sant Lluch circle, a

group the architect Antonio Gaudi had belonged to in previous years. Meets Joan Prats
and J. F. Rafols. Begins to paint in a Fauve style and to draw nudes.
1916 Continues to paint still lifesand landscapes. Paints his first self-portrait. The Barcelona
dealer Josep Dalmau sees and commends his first canvases. Sees Ambroise Vollard's
exhibition of French art in Barcelona. Reads avant-garde magazines, including 5o/>ees
de Paris and Nord-Sud and poetry by Stephane Mallarme, Guillaume Apollinaire, and
Pierre Reverdy.

1917 Meets Francis Picabia, who is exhibiting in Barcelona and publishing i91, a D.id.i

review. Produces portraits and landscapes of Ciurana and Prades.

1918 February-March — first solo show, at the Galerie Dalmau, of sixty-four canvases and
many drawings from 1914 to 1917. Joins Agrupacio Courbet, a group of young artists

associated with Artigas.

1919 Exhibits at the municipal exhibition in Barcelona with other members of the ( ouibet
group. March-June —takes first trip to Paris, where he meets Picasso and Maurice
Raynal and visits the Louvre. Produces poster for the I ren< h magazine / 'instant Attei
1919 spends winters in Paris and summers in Montroig (until 19 1 i).

1920 Meets Reverdy, Tristan Tzara, and Max ja< ob in Paris. Parti< ipates in I )ada lestiv.il ,it

the S.ille Gaveau. By year's end has a studio «it 45, rue Blomel

1921 Spring —temporarily moves to a furnished room on the rue Berthollet. Begins The Farm
 — —

[9] (completed 1922). April-May — first solo show in Paris, at the Calerie La Licorne,
organized by Dalmau, with a catalog preface by Raynal. Exhibition is a commercial
and critical failure.

1922 Returns to studio on the rue Blomet and discovers that Andre Masson has a studio in the
same building. Visited by Leonce Rosenberg, Daniel Henry Kahnweiler, Jacques
Doucet, Pierre Loeb, and Jacques Viot.

1923 Fall —exhibits with other Catalan painters at d'Automne in Paris. Develops
the Salon
friendships with Jacques Prevert, Ernest Hemingway, and Henry Miller.
1924 Joins Andre Breton, Louis Aragon, and Paul Eluard in Surrealist group.

1925 Begins "dream paintings" and "painting-poems." June —solo show at Pierre Loeb's
Calerie Pierre in Paris, organized by Viot. Exhibition stimulates widespread critical

interest in Miro's work. Hemingway buys The Farm [9]. November — participates in

first Surrealist group show at the Galerie Pierre.

1926 Collaborates with Max Ernst on sets for Romeo et Juliette for Serge Diaghilev's Ballets
Russes. Criticized, with Ernst, by other Surrealists, especially Aragon and Breton.
November-January 1927 Le renversement (The Somersault, Yale University Art
Gallery, New Haven) acquired by Marcel Duchamp's and Katherine S. Dreier's Societe
Anonyme and featured in their International Exhibition of Modem Art at the Brooklyn
Museum (the first public showing of Miro's work in the U.S.).
1927 Spring — moves to studio on the rueTourlaque in Montmartre, where his neighbors are
Ernst, Eluard, Jean Arp, and Rene Magritte.

1928 Spring — visits Holland. Returns to Paris and paints Dutch interiors after postcards of
old Dutch masters. May — large solo show at the Calerie Georges Bernheim, organized
by Loeb. Makes first papiers colles. Meets Alexander Calder and attends a perform-
ance of Calder's Circus.
1929 Paints imaginary portraits after old masters. October 12 — marries his cousin, Pilar

Juncosa, in Palma. Lives in Paris at 3, rue Francois Mouthon.

1930 May Papiers colles included in exhibition at the Calerie Pierre with work by Braque,
Picasso, Ernst, Arp, Duchamp, and Makes first lithographs,
Picabia. to illustrate Tzara's

collection of poems, L'arbre des voyageurs. October-November — first solo show in

the U.S., at the Valentine Gallery in New York.

1931 January-February —solo show of paintings from 1926 to 1929 at the Arts Club of
Chicago. July 17 —daughter Dolores born in Barcelona. December — solo show of
sculpture-objects at the Calerie Pierre.

1932 Creates sets, costumes, curtains, and "toys" for the ballet Jeux d'enfants, choreo-
graphed by Massine with music by Bizet, for the Ballets Russes de Monte-Carlo.
—
November first solo show at the Pierre Matisse Gallery in New York. Matisse be-
43 comes his American dealer. Returns to Barcelona (remains there until 1936).
1933 Makes first etchings as illustrations for Georges Hugnet's poem, Enfances. March-
June — paints eighteen large canvases after collages. July — first solo show in London, at

the Mayor Gallery.

1934 Begins "savage" period, making large pastels, then paintings on sandpaper. Produces
several tapestry cartoons commissioned by Marie Cuttoli. Subject of a special volume
of Cahiers d'art.

1935 May — included in Surrealist exhibition attheGacetade Arte, Tenerife, Canary Islands.

1936 Included in the exhibition of contemporary Spanish painters at the Jeu de Paume,
Paris. Summer —goes to Montroig and makes paintings on Masonite. Returns to Paris

(remains there until 1940). Included in the Museum of Modern Art's Cubism and
Abstract Art (March-April) and Fantastic Art, Dada, Surrealism (December-January
1937) exhibitions.

1937 Lives in a hotel on the rue Jules Chaplain. Later moves to an apartment on the
boulevard Blanqui. Attends classes, drawing from nude models, at the Grande
Chaumiere. Paints The Reaper (now lost) for the Spanish Pavilion at the Paris World's
Fair. Draws poster Aidez I'Espagne for the Spanish Loyalists.

1938 Writes "Je reve d'un grand atelier" ("I Dream of a Large Studio") for XXe siecle. Makes
engravings and drypoints in Louis Marcoussis's studio. Spends summer at Varenge-
ville-sur-Mer in Normandy with his friend the American architect Paul Nelson.

1939 Summer — lives in Varengeville; paints on burlap.

1940 Begins series of twenty-three Constellations at Varengeville during the first months of
World War II. May 20 — returns to Paris. Subsequently returns to Spain, finally settling

in Palma.

1941 Completes Constellations in Palma and Montroig and sends them to New York.
November-January 1942 — major retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art and
concurrent publication of the first monograph on the artist, by James Johnson Sweeney.

1942 Returns to Barcelona, living on the pasaje del Credito. Executes works on paper
depicting women, stars, and birds (through 1944).
1944 Barcelona series of fifty lithographs appears. Makes first ceramics, with assistance of
Artigas.

1945 February — solo show of Constellations and ceramics at the Pierre Matisse Gallery.
Makes series of large paintings on white and blac k grounds.
1946 Paints series of women and birds in the night. Ends ,isso( iat ion with the Galerie Pierre,
Paris.

1947 I ebruary-October — makes first visit to the U.S., to paint a mural < ommissioned !<>i the
Terrace Plaza Hotel in Cincinnati. Lives and works in the painter Carl Holty'S Studio, on
East 1 19th Street, New York. Makes sever, il et< hings, iik luding illustrations fol I /.ir.i's
 Miro in Carl Holty's studio, New York, Miro in Atelier 17, New York, 1947
1947

©Arnold Newman old Newman

collection of poetry and prose, L'antitete, at Atelier 17 in New York. May-June —solo
show at the Pierre Matisse Gallery. Meets Adolph Gottlieb.
1948 March-April —Cincinnati mural exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art. Returns to
Paris after an eight-year absence. November-December — first solo show at the

Galerie Maeght in Paris, which leads to gallery's representing him (to the present).
Monograph by Clement Greenberg published.
1949 Retrospectives at the Kunsthalle, Bern (April-May), and the Kunsthalle, Basel (June-
July).

1950 Moves from the pasaje del Credito to the calle Fulgaros in Barcelona. Paints mural for
the cafeteria in Harkness Commons at the Graduate Center, Harvard University. Sees
exhibition of work by Jackson Pollock at Galerie Facchetti, Paris.

1953 Exhibitions celebrating his sixtieth birthday at Galerie Maeght (June-August), Pierre

Matisse Gallery (November-December), and Kunsthalle, Bern.

1954 Wins Grand Prix International for graphic work at XXVII e Venice Biennale. Stops
painting until 1959, with the exception of twelve small paintings on cardboard done in

1955.

1956 Again moves studio and family from Barcelona to Palma, where he occupies a large
modern studio designed by his longtime friend, Josep Lluis Sert. Major retrospective at
the Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels (tour: Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, January-
February, and Kunsthalle, Basel, March-April).

1957 Works on two ceramic murals, Day and Night, for the UNESCO building in Paris

(completed 1958).

45 1958 October 17 — UNESCO walls win Guggenheim International Award.

 Miro receiving the Guggenheim
International Award from
President Eisenhower, 1959

1959 May — makes second trip to the U.S., in connection with retrospective at the Museum
of Modern Art (March-May). Receives Guggenheim International Award from Presi-

dent Eisenhower at White House ceremony. Pierre Matisse Gallery publishes an album
of reproductions of Constellations, with texts and preface by Andre Breton.
1961 November-December — makes third visit to the U.S., staying in New York.

1962 June-November — large retrospective at the Musee National d'Art Moderne in Paris.

Produces series of paintings on cardboard. September-October —exhibition of 250

engravings at the National Museum of Western Art in Tokyo.

1963 August-September — major retrospective at the Tate Gallery, London. Makes large
ceramic sculptures with Artigas.
1964 July —opening of the Fondation Maeght in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, designed by Sert and
featuring a labyrinth decorated with large sculptures and ceramic s by Miro. Partic i-

pates in Documenta III in Kassel. Designs ceramic mural for the Graduate S( hool of
Economics, Business, and Public Administration, University of St. Gallen, Swit/ei
land.

1965 October-November — makes fourth visit to the U.S., primarily visiting New York and
friends nearby.

1966 With Artigas, executes a large ceramic sc ulpture called ( athcdtal, whi< h is installed
(July) in an underwater grotto off the coast of Ju.in-les-Pins, I ram e. I .ill visits japan;
paints mural for a temporary space in Osaka. September ( )( tober retrospei live of
46 graphic work at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Begins work on an 8 by 9 fool
 —

ceramic mural, Alicia, commissioned by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in

memory of Alicia Patterson Guggenheim.

1967 March — Guggenheim mural installed. October —wins Carnegie Institute prize for

painting.

1968 May — makes fifth visit to the U.S., to receive honorary Doctor of Arts degree from
Harvard University. July-September — retrospective at the Fondation Maeght, Saint-
Paul-de-Vence, later traveling to Barcelona, honoring his seventy-fifth birthday. "Miro
Year" celebrated in Barcelona, including exhibition at the Hospital de la Santa Cruz
(November-January 1969), the first Miro exhibition held in Barcelona in fifty years.

1969 Spring — major retrospective at the Haus der Kunst, Munich. Miro otro exhibition
organized by a group of young architects from Barcelona.

1970 With Artigas, creates large ceramic mural for Barcelona's airport. March — Miro's
largest ceramic mural to date, Impromptu, exhibited at the Japan Gas Association's
pavilion at Expo '70 in Osaka. December 18 — with Antoni Tapies, participates in sit-in

of Catalan intellectuals at the monastery of Montserrat to protest the Burgos trial of

young Basque nationalists.

1971 October-November —exhibition of sculpture at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis

(tours to Cleveland Museum of Art and Art Institute of Chicago).

1972 Establishment of the Fundacio Joan Miro, Centre d'Estudis d'Art Contemporani, Bar-
celona. October-January 1973 loan Miro: Magnetic Fields exhibition appears at the
Guggenheim Museum. Commissioned to do tapestry for the East Building of the
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

1973 April-June — large exhibition at the Fondation Maeght in honor of Miro's eightieth
birthday. October-January 1974 — major exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art of
their forty-four works by Miro.
1974 May-October —concurrent Miro exhibitions in Paris of paintings, sculpture, and
ceramics at the Grand Palais and graphic oeuvre at the Musee d'Art Moderne.
1975 June 19 —opening of the Fundacio Joan Miro, Centre d'Estudis d'Art Contemporani,
Pare de Montjuic, Barcelona, in a building designed b\ Sert.

1976 June 18 —formal inauguration of the Fundacio Joan Miro with exhibition of 475
drawings from 1901 to 1975, selected from 5,000 drawings donated by the artist to the
foundation.

1978 August-October — painting retrospective held at the Museo Espahol de Arte Contem-
poranea, Madrid.

1979 July — major retrospective in honor of his eighty-sixth birthday at the Fondation
Maeght. Unveils his first stained-glass windows, which are installed in the Fundacio
47 Joan Miro.
"Nk
 CATALOG OF THE EXHIBITION

Works are arranged chronologically. Dimensions, as supplied by lenders, are given in

centimeters (and inches), height preceding width. An asterisk by a catalog number
indicates that the work will be exhibited in Washington, D.C., only.

The titles of Miro's paintings, many of them poetic, are generally in French. These have
been translated here for purposes of consistency and intelligibility to an American
audience.

49
1. Landscape, Montroig, 1914
Oil on paperboard, 37 x 45 (14 5/e x 17 3/4)
Pierre Matisse Gallery, New York
 *2. The Bottle and the Pepper, 1915
Oil on paperboard, 48.3 x 55.9 (19 x 22)
Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Josep Lluis Sert

51
 Newspaper and Flower Vase, 1916-17
Oil on canvas, 72.4 x 61 (28% x 24)
Mr. and Mrs. James W. Alsdorf, Chicago

52
 *4. The Village, Prades, 1917
Oilon canvas, 65 x 72.6 (25 5/e x 28 5/s)
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York

53
 5 Still Life with Coffee Mill, 1918
7
Oil on canvas, 62.5 x 70.8 (24 /8 x 27 /8
5
)

E. V. Thaw and Co., Inc., New York

54
 6. Portrait of Ramon Sunyer, 1918
Oil on canvas, 68.9 x 51.1 (27 1/8 x 20V8 )

Private collection

55
 7. Portrait of Juanita Obrador, 1918
Oil on canvas, 70 x 64.4 (27 3/8 x 24 3/8 )
The Art Institute of Chicago
The Joseph Winterbotham Collection

56
 8. Standing Nude, 1918
Oil on canvas, 153 x 120.7 (59% x 48)
The St. Louis Art Museum
Purchase: Friends Fund

57
 *9. The Farm, 1921-22
Oil on canvas, 122.5 x 140.3 (48V4 x 55V4)
Ernest Hemingway, New York

58
 *10. The Tilled Field, 1923-24
Oil on canvas, 66 x 92.7 (26 x 36 1
/2)

The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York

59
 1 1 . Portrait of Madame B, 1 924
Tempera on canvas, 130 x 96 (51 Vs x 37 3A)
CPLY Art Trust, New York

60
 12. Carnival of Harlequin, 1924-25
Oil on canvas, 64.1 x 91.1 (26 x 36%)
Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York
Room of Contemporary Art Fund

61
 *13. The Birth of the World, 1925
Oil on canvas, 250.8 x200 (98 3/4 x 78%)
The Museum of Modern Art, New York
Acquired through an anonymous fund, the Mr. and Mrs. Slifka and Armand C.
Erpf Funds, and by gift of the artist, 1972

62
 14. Nude, 1926
Oil on canvas, 92.1 x 72.7 (36V4 x 28%)
Philadelphia Museum of Art
The Louise and Walter Arensberg Collection

63
 15 Dog Barking at the Moon, 1926
Oil on canvas, 73 x 92.1 (28 3/4 x 36 1
/4)

Philadelphia Museum of Art

The A. E. Gallatin Collection

64
 16. Landscape, 1927
Oil on canvas, 129.9 x 194 (SV/% x 76 3/a)
Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Gordon Bunshaft, New York

65
 17. Circus Horse, 1927
Oil on canvas, 195 x
280 (76 3/4 x HOVi)
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution,
Washington, D.C.

66
 18. Still Life with Lamp, 1928
Oil on canvas, 88.9 x 106.4 (35 x 44%)
Private collection

67
 19. Portrait of Mrs. Mills in 1750, 1929
Oil on canvas, 1 14.5 x 88.9 (46 x 39Va)
The Museum of Modern Art, New York
James Thrall Soby Bequest, 1979

68
 20 Seated Woman, 1932
Oil onwood, 46 x 38.1 (18Vi x 15)
James Johnson Sweeney

69
 21. Painting, 1933
Oil on canvas, 130 x 162 (51 Ve x 63 3/4)
Perls Galleries, New York

70
 22. Head of a Man, 1935
Oil on paperboard, 106 x 75 (41 A
3
x 29V2 )

Private collection

71
 23. Persons in the Presence of a Metamorphosis, 1936
Egg tempera on Masonite, 49.9 x 57.2 (19 5/a x 22V2)
Collection of the New Orleans Museum of Art
Bequest of Victor K. Kiam

72
 24. Painting, 1936
Oil and sand on Masonite, 78.8 x 107.3 (31 x 42 1
/*)

Private collection

73
 25 The Circus, 1937
Oil on Celotex, 120 35%)
x 91.1 (47 Va x

The Meadows Museum, Southern Methodist University, Dallas

74
 26. Still Life with Old Shoe, 1937
Oil on canvas, 87 x 117 (32 x 46)
The Museum of Modern Art, New York
James Thrall Soby Bequest, 1979

75
27. Self-Portrait 1, 1937-38
Pencil, crayon, and oil on canvas, 146.1 x 97.2 {57Vi x 3814)
The Museum of Modern Art, New York
James Thrall Soby Bequest, 1979
 28. Self-Portrait II, 1938
Oil on canvas, 129.5 x 185.6 (51 x 77)
The Detroit Institute of Arts
Gift of W. Hawkins Ferry

77
29. line etoile caresse le sein d'une negresse (A Star Caresses the Breast of a
Black Woman), 1938
Oil on canvas, 129.9 x 195.9 (5114 x 77Va)
Pierre Matisse Gallery, New York
 30. A Drop of Dew Falling from the Wing of a Bird Awakens Rosalie Asleep in the
Shadow of a Cobweb, 1939
Oil on burlap, 65.4 x 91.8 (25 3A x 36%)
The University of Iowa Museum of Art, Iowa City

79
31. The Nightingale's Song at Midnight and Morning Rain, 1940
Gouache and oil wash on paper, 38 x 46 (15 x 18V8)
Perls Galleries, New York
 32. Acrobatic Dancers, 1940
Gouache and oil wash on paper, 46 x 38 (18V8 x 15)

Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut

The Philip L. Goodwin Collection

81
33. The Harbor, 1945
Oil on canvas, 130 x 162 (51% x 63 3A)
Mr. and Mrs. Armand Bartos, New York
 34. Woman and Little Girl in Front of the Sun, 1946
Oil on canvas, 143.5 x 114 (56% x 44%)
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution,
Washington, D.C.

83
35. Painting, 1950
Oil on canvas, 80 x 100 (31% x 39 3/e)
Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Gordon Bunshaft, New York
 36. Painting, 1953
Oil on canvas, 245 x 125 (96% x 49'A)
Pierre Matisse Gallery, New York

85
37. The Red Disk, 1960
Oil on canvas, 129.9 x 165.1 (51V8 x 65)

Collection of New Orleans Museum of Art

Bequest of Victor K. Kiam
 38. Blue II, 1961
Oil on canvas, 270 x 355 (106V4 x 139 3/4)
Pierre Matisse Gallery, New York

87
39. First Spark of Day III, 1966
Oil on canvas, 146.1 x 111.3 (57V2 x 45)
Carimati Collection, New York
 V

40. Woman before an Eclipse with Her Hair Disheveled by the Wind, 1967
Oil on canvas, 240 x 195 (94 2 x 76%)
Pierre Matisse Gallery, New York

89
41. Hair Pursued by Two Planets, 1968
Oil on canvas, 195 x 130 (76% x 5VA)
Pierre Matisse Gallery, New York
 42 Birds at the Birth of Day, 1970
Oil on canvas, 219.7 x 261.6 (86V2 x 103)
Pierre Matisse Gallery, New York

91
43. Toward the Escape, 1972
Oil on canvas, 97.2 x 73 (36Vi x 28 3A)
Annette Mandel Inc., Great Neck, New York
 44. Woman, 1973
Oil on canvas, 115 x 88.5 (45V4 x 35)
Pierre Matisse Gallery, New York

93
 45. Bird, Insect, Constellation, 1974
Oil on canvas, 130 x 96.5 (51 x 38)
Pierre Matisse Gallery, New York

94
This book was produced by the Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, D.C. Printed by
Garamond Pridemark Press, Inc., Baltimore, Md. Set in 10/15 VIP Optima by Composition
Systems Inc., Arlington, Va. The paper is Warren's Lustro Offset Enamel Gloss, eighty-pound
text and one-hundred-pound cover. Designed by Elizabeth Sur.
 ^^""
iofto-.

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Other Smithsonian Institution Press

Titles of Interest

Fernando Botero Cynthia Jaffee McCabe

This book documents Botero's first major retrospective
exhibition in the United States, organized by the
Smithsonian's Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Gar-
den. Born in Colombia in 1932, a Greenwich Villager
in the '60s, and now a resident of Paris, Botero is truly
an international artist.

120 pages 17 color, 97 b/w 9x10

Directions Howard N. Fox

The focus is on five speculative categories of shared
interest suggested by the new art of the 1970s: Brute
Sculpture, Imitations, Eclectic Surfaces, Fictions, and
Shrines. Paintings, drawings, sculptures, mixed-media
works, site-oriented projects, and two video pieces
fifty-eight works by eighteen artists — are examined
103 pages 12 color, 34 b/w 7% x &Vi

"The Noble Buyer:" John Quinn

Patron of the Avant-Garde Judith Zilczer
Quinn, a brilliant New York attorney, was one of
America's foremost patrons of modern art in the early
years of the twentieth century. An enthusiastic and
knowledgeable collector of avant-garde American
and European — especially French — art, Quinn amas-
sed his vast and unparalleled collection at a time v

modern art was scorned by both the public m I

custodians of traditional culture.

199 pages 27 color, 92 b/w 9x12

Gregory Gillespie Abram Lerner

Gillespie "might just emerge as the most important
American painter at work today," in the opinion of a
noted art critic, John Canaday. All aspects of Gilles-

pie's art are discussed and many of his works are

reproduced in this beautifully illustrated book, which
also contains a revealing, in-depth interview with the
artist.

112 pages 20 color, 53 b/w 9 x lO'/z

The Golden Door: Artist Immigrants

of America, 1876-1976 Cynthia Jaffee McCabe
The author discusses in detail a g'oup of
immigrants — artists, painters, sculptors, architects,

and photographers — who have contributed signifi-

cantly to American art during the past century.

432 pages 39 color, 218 b/w 9x11%
ISUN 0-87474 MM H