JOAN MIRÓ I FERRÀ (Barcelona, 1893 - Palma de Mallorca, 1983).
Untitled. 1972.
Wax on paper.
The support, paper, is the cover of a copy of "Tapís de Tarragona" (limited edition).
Signed and dated in the lower right-hand corner.
Certificate of authenticity ADOM enclosed.
Measurements: 29,5 x 22 cm; 66 x 57 cm (frame).
Original drawing by Miró, made with crayons. The degree of abstraction of the lines with which Miró represents the human figures here is genuinely Miróian: the arches ending in circles that symbolise eyes, the chromatic symbolism (blue, black, yellow, red), the concentric circles as a metaphor of eternal return of the cycles of renovation and fertility... take us back to a long path of conceptual and formal search that began with the Romanesque frescoes, that is, with the mystical eye and spiritual schematism.
In 1966, Maria Dolors Miró, Joan Miró's daughter, was involved in a serious accident when her car was hit. Maria Dolors was treated in Tarragona, and in gratitude for the care she received, Joan Miró presented the city's Red Cross with a work, the Tapís de Tarragona, which he made in collaboration with the artist Josep Royo. This work is in the Museu d'Art Modern de Tarragona. In 1972, the book "Tapís de Tarragona" was published in a limited edition, with ten lithographs by Miró, and texts by Rafael Orozco, Maria Luisa Borrás and Josep Royo. A total of 1100 copies were printed. Of these, 100 copies were printed on Sala Gaspar watermarked paper, signed in pencil by the artist, and 1,000 copies on Sarrió paper. It is catalogued in "Miró's illustrated books", Patrick Cramer, Publisher. Geneva.
Joan Miró trained in Barcelona and made his individual debut in 1918 at the Galeries Dalmau. In 1920 he moved to Paris and met Picasso, Raynal, Max Jacob, Tzara and the Dadaists. There, under the influence of the surrealist poets and painters, he gradually matured his style; he tried to transpose surrealist poetry to the visual, based on memory, fantasy and the irrational. His third exhibition in Paris in 1928 was his first great triumph: the Museum of Modern Art in New York acquired two of his works. He returned to Spain in 1941, and that same year the museum devoted a retrospective exhibition to him which was to be his definitive international consecration. Throughout his life he received numerous awards, such as the Grand Prizes at the Venice Biennale and the Guggenheim Foundation in Venice, the Carnegie Prize for Painting in Venice, the Gold Medals of the Generalitat de Catalunya and of the Fine Arts, and was awarded honorary doctorates by the universities of Harvard and Barcelona. His work can currently be seen at the Joan Miró Foundation in Barcelona, the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, the MoMA in New York, the Reina Sofía Museum in Madrid, the National Gallery in Washington, the MNAM in Paris and the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo.