Friday, 19 September 2025

Joan Miró - part 3

Joan Miró Ferra was born on April 20, 1893, in Barcelona. At the age of 14, he went to business school in Barcelona and also attended La Lonja, the academy of fine arts, the same city. Upon completing three years of art studies, he took a position as a clerk. After suffering a nervous breakdown, he abandoned business and resumed his art studies, attending Francesc Galí’s Escola d’Art in Barcelona from 1912 to 1915. In 1917, he met Francis Picabia and the following year, the dealer José Dalmau gave him his first solo show at his gallery in Barcelona.

n 1920, Miró made his first trip to Paris, where he met Pablo Picasso. From this time, Miró divided his time between Paris and Montroig, Spain. In Paris, he associated with the poets Max Jacob, Pierre Reverdy, and Tristan Tzara and participated in Dada activities. Dalmau organized Miró’s first solo show in Paris, at the Galerie La Licorne in 1921. His work was included in the Salon d’Automne of 1923. In 1924, Miró joined the Surrealist group. His solo show at the Galerie Pierre, Paris, in 1925 was a major Surrealist event; Miró was included in the first Surrealist exhibition at the Galerie Pierre that same year. He visited the Netherlands in 1928 and began a series of paintings inspired by Dutch masters. That year he also executed his first papiers collés and collages. In 1929, he started his experiments in lithography, and his first etchings date from 1933. During the early 1930s, he made Surrealist sculptures incorporating painted stones and found objects. In 1936, Miró left Spain because of the civil war; he returned in 1941.

Miró’s first major museum retrospective was held at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, in 1941. That year, Miró began working in ceramics with Josep Lloréns y Artigas and started to concentrate on prints; from 1954 to 1958, he worked almost exclusively in these two mediums. In 1958, Miró was given a Guggenheim International Award for his murals for the UNESCO building in Paris. The following year, he resumed painting, initiating a series of mural-sized canvases. During the 1960s, he began to work intensively in sculpture. Miró retrospective took place at the Grand Palais, Paris, in 1974. In 1978, the Musée National d’Art Moderne exhibited over 500 works in a major retrospective of his drawings. Miró died on December 25, 1983, in Palma de Mallorca, Spain.

Biography from Guggenheim Museums


Note: All works © 2025 Successió Miró / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris


This is part 3 of a 13-part series on the works of Joan Miró: 

1936 Two Personages in love with a woman
oil on copper 26 x 34.9 cm
The Art Institute of Chicago, IL

1936 Two figures and a dragonfly
gouache, watercolour, and graphite on paper 41.1 x 32.2 cm
Guggenheim Museum, New York

1936 The Two Philosophers
oil on copper 35.6 x 49.8 cm
The Art Institute of Chicago, IL

1936 Painting
oil, tar, casein and sand on masonite 78 x 198 cm
Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona, Spain

1936 Painting
oil, tar, casein and sand on masonite 78 x 108 cm
Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona, Spain

1936 Painting
oil, gravel, pebbles, and sand on Masonite 77.6 x 107.2 cm
The Art Institute of Chicago, IL

1936 Painting
gouche on brick 31 x 15 cm
Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona, Spain

1937 Study for a portrait
ink on paper 64.1 x 48.6 cm
MoMA New York


1937 Still Life with Old Shoe

Miró created Still Life with Old Shoe in Paris over a four-month period of intense concentration, working from life for the first time in many years. The painting eschews simple categorization. It is both a still life and a landscape: the irregular back edge of the tabletop can be read as a horizon line. The objects are not to scale, and they are isolated in discrete cells, creating a formal rupture that calls to mind Miró’s work in collage. The color is acidic, highly saturated, and dissonant. For Miró this painting captured a "profound and fascinating reality.

Gallery label from Joan Miró: Painting and Anti-Painting

1927—1937, November 2, 2008–January 12, 2009


1937 Still life with old shoe
oil on canvas 81.3 x 116,8 cm
MoMA New York

1937 Standing woman
oil and oil wash, with charcoal, on cream wove paper
76.7 x 57.3 cm
The Art Institute of Chicago, IL

1937 Help Spain
pochoir 24.8 x 19.4 cm sheet (irregular)
MoMA New York

1937 Head of a man
gouache and oil on coloured paper 65.4 x 50.5 cm
MoMA New York

1937 Head
oil, stucco, graphite pencil, screws and towel on celotex
121 x 91 cm
Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona, Spain

1937 Group of personages
watercolour and black crayon, with touches of gouache, over graphite, on cream wove paper 49.5 x 64.5 cm
The Art Institute of Chicago, IL

1937-38 Self-Portrait I
pencil, crayon, and oil on canvas 146.1 x 97.2 cm
MoMA New York

1938 A star caresses the breast of a negress (Painting poem)
oil on canvas 129.5 x 194.3 cm
Tate, UK

1938 Black and Red Series etchings:

Miró developed his Black and Red Series in the midst of the Spanish Civil War. He conceived the compositions as variants on a crowded scene in which three figures—sometimes interpreted as a mother, a daughter, and a father (a group that corresponds to Miró’s own family)—face a monstrous, long-nosed head that might symbolize General Francisco Franco, who would go on to rule as dictator for several decades. To create the prints, the artist worked with two etched copper plates, alternately inking them in red and black. He superimposed them in different combinations and positions that suggest varying degrees of tumult within an overall narrative of oppression and fear.

MoMA New York

Etching 16.9 x 25.7 cm (plate)

Etching 25.6 x 16.8 cm (plate)

Etching 16.9 x 25.8 cm (plate)

Etching 16.9 x 26.7 cm (plate)

Etching 16.9 x 26.7 cm (plate)

Etching 16.9 x 25.8 cm (plate)

Etching 25.8 x 16.7 cm (plate)

Etching 25.5 x 16.5 cm (plate)
----------------------------------------

1938 Portrait of Miró
etching and drypoint on white wove paper 48 x 38.3 cm
The Art Institute of Chicago, IL

1938 Persons haunted by a bird
gouache and black crayon, with watercolour and touches of brown crayon, over traces of charcoal, on off-white wove paper 41 x 33.1 cm
The Art Institute of Chicago, IL

1938 Night Birds
gouache and graphite, with scraping, on tan wove paper
32.1 x 49.1 cm
The Art Institute of Chicago, IL

1938 Hourglass lying down
book cover 21.4 x 16.4 cm
MoMA New York

1938 Composition
etching and drypoint in black on white wove paper 32.7 x 50 cm
The Art Institute of Chicago, IL

1938 Woman doing her hair before a mirror
crayon, oil, gouache, and graphite on paper 41 x 33 cm
Guggenheim Museum, New York

1938 The three sisters
drypoint etching 26.5 x 19.5 cm (plate)
MoMA New York

1938 The Paradise of Phantoms
illustrated book with one drypoint with aquatint
 16.1 x 12.5 cm (page)
MoMA New York

1938 The Paradise of Phantoms
drypoint with aquatint book illustration
The Art Institute of Chicago, IL

1938 The Giantess
drypoint in black on ivory wove paper 34.5 x 23.8 cm
The Art Institute of Chicago, IL

1938 The wakening of the giant
drypoint etching 26.8 x 23.7 cm (plate)
MoMA New York

1939 Fraternity
etching from an illustrated book with eight engravings
14.8 x 9.1 cm (plate)

1939 The flight of a bird over the plain III
oil on burlap 89.5 x 115.6 cm
Guggenheim Museum, New York

1939 Seated woman II
oil on canvas oil on canvas 162 x 130 cm
Guggenheim Museum, New York

1941 Ciphers and Constellations

In January 1940, he began a series of twenty-three works on paper that later became known as The Constellations, of which this is an example. Composed on identically sized sheets of paper over twenty-one months, this remarkably poetic suite was created from January 1940 to September 1941, under the duress of World War II, when Miró and his family moved from France to his native Spain to avoid the advance of the Nazis. About the “Constellations” he stated: “If the interplay of lines and colours does not expose the inner drama of the creator, then it is nothing more than bourgeois entertainment. The forms expressed by an individual who is part of society must reveal the movement of a soul trying to escape the reality of the present… . in order to approach new realities, to offer men the possibility of rising above the present.”

Art Institute of Chicago, IL


1941 Ciphers and constellations in love with a woman
opaque watercolor with watercolour washes on ivory, rough textured wove paper 45.9 x 38 cm
The Art Institute of Chicago, IL

1940 The escape ladder (from the Constellation series)
gouache, watercolour, and ink on paper 40 x 47.6 cm
MoMA New York

1941 The Beautiful Bird Revealing the Unknown to a Pair of Lovers

This is one of a celebrated group of twenty-four drawings, collectively referred to as the Constellation series, which was executed during a period of personal crisis for Miró triggered by the Spanish Civil War and World War II. Trapped in France from 1936 to 1940, the artist embarked on these obsessively meticulous works on paper in an attempt to commune with nature and escape the tragedies of current events. Despite their modest formats, they represented the most important works of his career up to that time, a fact he quickly realised.

The first eleven works in the series were executed in Normandy between December 1939 and May 1940. Although the motifs throughout correspond to Miró's classic repertory, in the earlier works the washed grounds are more saturated, the motifs larger, and the compositions looser than in those that would follow. In the later thirteen works, executed in Palma de Mallorca in 1940–41, of which The Beautiful Bird Revealing the Unknown to a Pair of Lovers is exemplary, the grounds are almost opalescent, and the familiar motifs are smaller and tightly woven into a continuous linear web. In its elusive poetry yet rigorous control, this work not only embodies Miró's artistic personality, but it also mirrors the luminous tracks of constellations in a clear night sky.

MoMA New York


1941 The Beautiful Bird revealing the unknown to a Pair of Lovers
gouache, oil wash, and charcoal on paper
45.7 x 38.1 cm MoMA New York

1941 Ciphers and Constellations

In January 1940, he began a series of twenty-three works on paper that later became known as The Constellations, of which this is an example. Composed on identically sized sheets of paper over twenty-one months, this remarkably poetic suite was created from January 1940 to September 1941, under the duress of World War II, when Miró and his family moved from France to his native Spain to avoid the advance of the Nazis. About the “Constellations” he stated: “If the interplay of lines and colors does not expose the inner drama of the creator, then it is nothing more than bourgeois entertainment. The forms expressed by an individual who is part of society must reveal the movement of a soul trying to escape the reality of the present… . in order to approach new realities, to offer men the possibility of rising above the present.”

Art Institute of Chicago, IL


1941 Ciphers and Constellations in Love with a Woman
opaque watercolor with watercolour washes on ivory, rough textured wove paper 45.9 x 38 cm
The Art Institute of Chicago, IL

1942 Figures in front of the Sun
charcoal pencil, gouache, Indian ink and pastel on paper
103 x 60 cm
Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona, Spain
 






Wednesday, 17 September 2025

Joan Miró - part 2

Joan Miró Ferra was born on April 20, 1893, in Barcelona. At the age of 14, he went to business school in Barcelona and also attended La Lonja, the academy of fine arts, the same city. Upon completing three years of art studies, he took a position as a clerk. After suffering a nervous breakdown, he abandoned business and resumed his art studies, attending Francesc Galí’s Escola d’Art in Barcelona from 1912 to 1915. In 1917, he met Francis Picabia and the following year, the dealer José Dalmau gave him his first solo show at his gallery in Barcelona.

n 1920, Miró made his first trip to Paris, where he met Pablo Picasso. From this time, Miró divided his time between Paris and Montroig, Spain. In Paris, he associated with the poets Max Jacob, Pierre Reverdy, and Tristan Tzara and participated in Dada activities. Dalmau organized Miró’s first solo show in Paris, at the Galerie La Licorne in 1921. His work was included in the Salon d’Automne of 1923. In 1924, Miró joined the Surrealist group. His solo show at the Galerie Pierre, Paris, in 1925 was a major Surrealist event; Miró was included in the first Surrealist exhibition at the Galerie Pierre that same year. He visited the Netherlands in 1928 and began a series of paintings inspired by Dutch masters. That year he also executed his first papiers collés and collages. In 1929, he started his experiments in lithography, and his first etchings date from 1933. During the early 1930s, he made Surrealist sculptures incorporating painted stones and found objects. In 1936, Miró left Spain because of the civil war; he returned in 1941.

Miró’s first major museum retrospective was held at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, in 1941. That year, Miró began working in ceramics with Josep Lloréns y Artigas and started to concentrate on prints; from 1954 to 1958, he worked almost exclusively in these two mediums. In 1958, Miró was given a Guggenheim International Award for his murals for the UNESCO building in Paris. The following year, he resumed painting, initiating a series of mural-sized canvases. During the 1960s, he began to work intensively in sculpture. Miró retrospective took place at the Grand Palais, Paris, in 1974. In 1978, the Musée National d’Art Moderne exhibited over 500 works in a major retrospective of his drawings. Miró died on December 25, 1983, in Palma de Mallorca, Spain.

Biography from Guggenheim Museums


Note: All works © 2025 Successió Miró / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris


This is part 2 of a 13-part series on the works of Joan Miró:


1928 Dutch Interior (I)

Dutch Interior (I) is based on a seventeenth century painting by Hendrick Martensz Sorgh depicting a lute player in a domestic interior. Miró bought a postcard reproduction of the work at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam a few months prior to beginning his painting. "I had the postcard pinned up on my easel while I painted," Miró reported. In bold, flat colors that rejected the naturalistic modeling and perspective of seventeenth–century Dutch painting, Miró greatly accentuated some elements of Sorgh’s composition, the lute and the man’s head and ruffled collar in particular, while diminishing others.

MoMA, New York


1928 Dutch Interior (1)
oil on canvas 91.8 x 73 cm
MoMA New York


The Lutenist by Hendrick Martensz Sorgh, painted 1661
oil on panel 51.5 x 38.5 cm
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

1928 Study for Dutch Interior (1)
pencil and white chalk on paper 15.3 x 11.8 cm
MoMA New York

1928 Study for Dutch Interior (1)
charcoal and pencil on paper 62.6 x 47.3 cm
MoMA New York

published 1928 Once There Was a Little Magpie
illustrated book with eight pochoirs page size 32.4 x 25.2 cm
MoMA New York

1928 Dutch Interior II 
oil on canvas 92 x 73 cm
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York

1929 Untitled
gouache and charcoal on paper 71.8 x 108 cm
Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona, Spain


1929 Untitled collage of cut and pasted papers

Untitled is one of 22 large-scale chromatically austere collages Miró made between July and November 1929. In these works, he kept his drawn lines to a minimum. Miró described his collages as “drawings with new explorations into substance,” and as “training exercises, shadowboxing, so as to hit harder and harder, in a tougher and more energetic way.”

Art Institute of Chicago, IL


1929 Untitled
collage of cut and pasted papers (including flocked paper), and black Conté crayon, with touches of white gouache, pen and black ink, and traces of graphite, on cream wove paper
659 x 98.9 cm
The Art Institute of Chicago, IL

1929 Collage
conté crayon, gouache, ink, flocked paper, newspaper, abrasive cloth, and various papers on flocked paper
 72.7 x 108.4 cm
MoMA New York


1929 Portrait of Mistress Mills in 1750

This painting takes its cues from an eighteenth–century British portrait by George Engleheart of the singer and actress Mrs. Isabella Mills, humorously recast by Miró’s title as "Mistress" rather than "Mrs." The figure and background are painted in vivid hues, which fundamentally differ from the naturalistically rendered forms in the original portrait. As with the Dutch Interiors, here Miró rejected the naturalism of his source imagery, aggressively simplifying and distorting it.

MoMA, New York


1929 Portrait of Mistress Mills in 1750
oil on canvas 116.7 x 89.6 cm
MoMA New York

c1929 Study for Portrait of Mistress Mills in 1750
graphite pencil on lined paper 21.7 x 16.7 cm
MoMA New York

1929 Study for Portrait of Mistress Mills in 1750
graphite pencil on lined paper 13.4 x 10.8 cm
MoMA New York

1930 Lithograph 2 published 1973
56 x 45.1 cm

1930 Study
black crayon on cream laid paper 62.5 x 46.5 cm
The Art Institute of Chicago, IL


1930 Relief Construction

This work is one of two of Miró's 1930 wood and metal constructions that are known to have survived. These constructions were made from pieces of wood that could easily have been found at a carpentry shop. Sharp nails are hammered through the red wooden circle at the top left of this composition. Their tips aim outward in an aggressive challenge to traditional artistry and figuration.

MoMA, New York


1930 Relief Construction
oil on wood, nails, staples, and metal on wood panel
91.1 x 70.2 x 16.2 cm
MoMA New York

1930 Lithograph I
24.1 x 32 cm (plate)
MoMA New York

1930 printed 1973
Lithograph III 56 x 45.1 cm

1931 Seated woman
oil on paper 63 x 46 cm
Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona, Spain

1931 Painting
gouache and pastel on paper 63 x 46 cm
Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona, Spain

1931 Object
oil on wood, nails, string, bone, and chickpea 40 x 29.7 x 22 cm
MoMA New York

1931 Group of figures in the forest
oil on canvas 33 x 41 cm
Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona, Spain

1931 Composition with figures in the burnt forest
oil on canvas 81 x 100 cm
Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona, Spain

1932 Flame in space and nude woman
oil on cardboard 41 x 32 cm
Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona, Spain

1932 Figure
oil on panel 27.3 x 20 cm
The Art Institute of Chicago, IL

1932 Composition with Figures
gouache, over traces of graphite, on cream wove paper
48.2 x 63.2 cm
The Art Institute of Chicago, IL

1932 Bather
oil and pencil on wood 36.8 x 45.7 cm
MoMA New York

1933 Untitled
conté crayon, gouache and collage on paper
Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona

1933 Untitled (Drawing-Collage)
charcoal and cut-and-pasted painted paper and cut-and-pasted hand-colored gelatin silver print on paper 63.5 x 47.3 cm
MoMA New York

1933 Painting
oil on canvas 174 x 196.2 cm
MoMA New York

1933 Painting (Figures with Stars)
oil on canvas 198.1 x 246.4 cm
The Art Institute of Chicago, IL

1933 Drawing
collage conté crayon, postcards, sandpaper, and cut-and-pasted printed paper on flocked paper 107.8 x 72.1 cm
MoMA New York

1933 Drawing - Collage
106.5 x 71.9 cm
The Art Institute of Chicago, IL

1933-34 "Hirondelle Amour"
oil on canvas 199.3 x 247.6 cm
MoMA New York

1934 Painting
oil on canvas 97 x 130 cm
Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona, Spain

1934 Homage to Joan Prats
collage, graphite pencil and charcoal on paper 63.3 x 47 cm
Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona, Spain

1934 Figure
charcoal pencil, pastel and pencil on paper 107 x 72 cm
Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona, Spain

1934 Collage-painting
oil, graphite pencil and collage on paper 37 x 23 cm
Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona, Spain

1934 Collage
corrugated cardboard, felt, gouache, and pencil on sandpaper 36.9 x 23.6 cm
MoMA New York

1934 Woman
pastel, charcoal, and graphite, with smudging and scraping, on tan wove paper 107.1 x 71.4 cm
The Art Institute of Chicago, IL

1934 Woman (Opera Singer)
 pastel and pencil on flocked paper 106.7 x 71.1 cm
MoMA New York

1934 Untitled
conté crayon, gouache, and graphite on paper 71.2 x 106.9 cm
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York

1934 Untitled
brush and black ink, and pastel on off-white laid paper
61.5 x 46.5 cm
The Art Institute of Chicago, IL

1935 published 1936 Woman and dog in front of the moon
Pochoir 51.3 x 45.4 cm (image)
MoMA New York

1935 The Man with a Pipe
gouache on paper 36.5 x 29.5 cm
The Art Institute of Chicago, IL

1935 Rope and People I
oil on cardboard mounted on wood, with coil of rope
104.8 x 74.6 cm
MoMA New York


1935 Plate (folio 33) from 23 Gravures

Etching from an illustrated book with twelve etchings (one with aquatint and drypoint), five drypoints, three engravings (one with drypoint), two lithographs, and one woodcut.

MoMA, New York


1935 Plate (folio 33) from 23 Gravures
30.9 x 23.5 cm (plate)
MoMA New York

1935 Personage, Animals, Mountains
tempera on cream wove paper, laid down on thick millboard support 32.1 x 40.8 cm
The Art Institute of Chicago, IL

1935 Man, Woman, and Bulls
oil and metal fasteners on sandpaper, mounted on canvas, with feathers 108 x 99 cm
The Art Institute of Chicago, IL

1935 Man and woman in front of a pile of excrement
oil on copper 23 x 32 cm
Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona

1935 Composition with figures
watercolour and brush and black ink, over graphite, on white wove paper 34.2 x 45.8 cm
The Art Institute of Chicago, IL


1936 Object

Stuffed parrot on wood perch, stuffed silk stocking with velvet

garter and doll's paper shoe suspended in hollow wood frame,

derby hat, hanging cork ball, celluloid fish, and engraved map.


1936 Object
81 x 30.1 x 26 cm
MoMA New York

1936 Drawing - Collage
crayon and decals on paper 64 x 43.3 cm
MoMA New York