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Lot Essay
‘I am working with great enthusiasm on a new series of objects, and as soon as they are finished I shall make small paintings as concentrated as possible which express and sum up, as best as my strength will allow, my latest research...’ (Miró, in a letter to Christian Zervos, dated 20 January 1932, quoted in A. de la Beaumelle, ed., Joan Miró, 1917-1934, exh. cat., Paris, 2004, p. 357).
‘When I stand in front of a canvas, I never know what I’m going to do – and nobody is more surprised than I at what comes out’ -Joan Miró.
Executed in the early autumn of 1932, Tête d’homme is one of a small group of twelve exquisitely painted, intimately sized, experimental oil paintings which emerged at a pivotal moment in Joan Miró’s career, following several years marked by what the artist termed a ‘crisis of personal consciousness’ (Miró, quoted in M. Rowell, ed., Joan Miró: Selected Writings and Interviews, London, 1987, p. 266). This crisis had led him to fundamentally question painting as an outlet for his creativity, and the late 1920s and early 1930s are often collectively known as his period of ‘anti-painting,’ in which he pursued the ‘assassination of painting’ after a remark ascribed to him by the poet Maurice Raynal. During this turbulent phase, Miró began to experiment intensely with various media including collage and sculptural assemblage, producing only a handful of oils on canvas that were intended as a ‘goodbye’ to painting (Miró, quoted in A. Umland, ‘Large Paintings on White Grounds,’ in A. Umland et al., Joan Miró: Painting and Anti-Painting, 1927-1937, exh. cat., New York, p. 86). However, by 1932 Miró found himself drawn once again to the medium of paint, and the artist embarked on a series of transitional works on wood and canvas which not only embodied his most recent research, but also heralded a new direction in his art which would occupy him for much of the following year.
This new phase of creativity coincided with a period of serious financial difficulty for the artist, which forced him to abandon his flat in Rue Francois-Mouthon in Paris and return once again to Barcelona. In January 1932, he settled at number 4, Passatge del Crèdit, his childhood home where his mother still lived. Writing to Christian Zervos shortly after the move, he described his new studio and the oddness he felt upon his return: ‘I just have to tell you that the room which will from now on be my studio is the room where I was born. This, after an eventful life and the experience of a reasonable success, feels very strange and worthy of being shared with you’ (Miró, quoted in A. de la Beaumelle, ed., Joan Miró, 1917-1934, exh. cat., Paris, 2004, p. 357). Just a few weeks later, in February 1932, he was commissioned to design the décor and costumes for the Ballet Russes production of Jeux d’enfants, a project which engrossed him for much of the first half of the year, and which he predicted would be ‘as sensational as a bullfight or heavyweight match’ (Miró, quoted in C. Lanchner, Joan Miró, exh. cat., New York, 1993, p. 58). After the ballet’s premiere in June, Miró devoted the rest of the summer months to painting, producing a number of compositions on wood which take as their subject the distorted bodies of a collection of mysterious biomorphic figures. While the majority of this series focus on the contortions of the female body, Tête d’homme is unique in that it is the only one which takes the male cranium as its subject. Executed in acidic, glowing colours, Miró divides the head into a series of overlapping, converging, fluid planes, creating an abstract vision of the contours of the male physiognomy.
One of the most striking aspects of this work is the artist’s bold use of colour, and the manner in which the curvilinear, meandering contours of the different portions of the head are delineated by sharp divergences in pigment. While they shift dramatically from cobalt blue to sharp tangerine, acidic yellow to pale lilac, the interlocking abstract forms maintain a sense of unity. This is in part due to the subtle way in which the artist utilises colour to highlight and accentuate the interconnectedness of the shapes. In some cases, the forms appear to overlap or bleed into one another, and the point of intersection is marked by a new shade. Like a Venn diagram, this section retains elements of the two converging shapes, while also attaining a new identity, at once independent and unique from its neighbours. In other areas, colour is introduced using a subtle gradated application of paint, creating soft, blurred patches of pigment along the borders of these forms. For example, small touches of green are introduced to the corners of the central orange portion of the composition, their edges fanning outwards as they gradually merge with the rest of the tangerine pigment, while the small, curving cloud of black adds a greater sense of depth to the upper portion of the shape as it meets its blue neighbour. While the question as to whether the colours contain any symbolic or anatomical references remains a mystery, their visual power when combined in this manner imbues the composition with an enigmatic sense of harmony.
Exhibited at the Galerie Pierre Colle in Paris in December 1932, and then shortly afterwards in 1933 at the Pierre Matisse Gallery in New York, this series of works on board signalled a distinctive shift in Miró’s approach to painting. For the artist, they illustrated not only a condensed synthesis of the theories and ideas which had occupied him for much of the previous two years, but also the path which lay ahead. As Miró explained, paintings such as Tête d’homme were often the gateway for his creativity: ‘…when I’ve finished something I discover it’s just a basis for what I’ve got to do next. It’s never anything more than a point of departure, and I’ve got to take off from there in the opposite direction… Far from being a finished work, to me it’s just a beginning, a hotbed for the idea that’s just sprouted, just emerged…’ (Miró, quoted in F. Trabal, ‘A Conversation with Joan Miró,’ in Joan Miró: Selected Writings and Interviews, ed., M. Rowell, London, 1987, p. 98).
‘When I stand in front of a canvas, I never know what I’m going to do – and nobody is more surprised than I at what comes out’ -Joan Miró.
Executed in the early autumn of 1932, Tête d’homme is one of a small group of twelve exquisitely painted, intimately sized, experimental oil paintings which emerged at a pivotal moment in Joan Miró’s career, following several years marked by what the artist termed a ‘crisis of personal consciousness’ (Miró, quoted in M. Rowell, ed., Joan Miró: Selected Writings and Interviews, London, 1987, p. 266). This crisis had led him to fundamentally question painting as an outlet for his creativity, and the late 1920s and early 1930s are often collectively known as his period of ‘anti-painting,’ in which he pursued the ‘assassination of painting’ after a remark ascribed to him by the poet Maurice Raynal. During this turbulent phase, Miró began to experiment intensely with various media including collage and sculptural assemblage, producing only a handful of oils on canvas that were intended as a ‘goodbye’ to painting (Miró, quoted in A. Umland, ‘Large Paintings on White Grounds,’ in A. Umland et al., Joan Miró: Painting and Anti-Painting, 1927-1937, exh. cat., New York, p. 86). However, by 1932 Miró found himself drawn once again to the medium of paint, and the artist embarked on a series of transitional works on wood and canvas which not only embodied his most recent research, but also heralded a new direction in his art which would occupy him for much of the following year.
This new phase of creativity coincided with a period of serious financial difficulty for the artist, which forced him to abandon his flat in Rue Francois-Mouthon in Paris and return once again to Barcelona. In January 1932, he settled at number 4, Passatge del Crèdit, his childhood home where his mother still lived. Writing to Christian Zervos shortly after the move, he described his new studio and the oddness he felt upon his return: ‘I just have to tell you that the room which will from now on be my studio is the room where I was born. This, after an eventful life and the experience of a reasonable success, feels very strange and worthy of being shared with you’ (Miró, quoted in A. de la Beaumelle, ed., Joan Miró, 1917-1934, exh. cat., Paris, 2004, p. 357). Just a few weeks later, in February 1932, he was commissioned to design the décor and costumes for the Ballet Russes production of Jeux d’enfants, a project which engrossed him for much of the first half of the year, and which he predicted would be ‘as sensational as a bullfight or heavyweight match’ (Miró, quoted in C. Lanchner, Joan Miró, exh. cat., New York, 1993, p. 58). After the ballet’s premiere in June, Miró devoted the rest of the summer months to painting, producing a number of compositions on wood which take as their subject the distorted bodies of a collection of mysterious biomorphic figures. While the majority of this series focus on the contortions of the female body, Tête d’homme is unique in that it is the only one which takes the male cranium as its subject. Executed in acidic, glowing colours, Miró divides the head into a series of overlapping, converging, fluid planes, creating an abstract vision of the contours of the male physiognomy.
One of the most striking aspects of this work is the artist’s bold use of colour, and the manner in which the curvilinear, meandering contours of the different portions of the head are delineated by sharp divergences in pigment. While they shift dramatically from cobalt blue to sharp tangerine, acidic yellow to pale lilac, the interlocking abstract forms maintain a sense of unity. This is in part due to the subtle way in which the artist utilises colour to highlight and accentuate the interconnectedness of the shapes. In some cases, the forms appear to overlap or bleed into one another, and the point of intersection is marked by a new shade. Like a Venn diagram, this section retains elements of the two converging shapes, while also attaining a new identity, at once independent and unique from its neighbours. In other areas, colour is introduced using a subtle gradated application of paint, creating soft, blurred patches of pigment along the borders of these forms. For example, small touches of green are introduced to the corners of the central orange portion of the composition, their edges fanning outwards as they gradually merge with the rest of the tangerine pigment, while the small, curving cloud of black adds a greater sense of depth to the upper portion of the shape as it meets its blue neighbour. While the question as to whether the colours contain any symbolic or anatomical references remains a mystery, their visual power when combined in this manner imbues the composition with an enigmatic sense of harmony.
Exhibited at the Galerie Pierre Colle in Paris in December 1932, and then shortly afterwards in 1933 at the Pierre Matisse Gallery in New York, this series of works on board signalled a distinctive shift in Miró’s approach to painting. For the artist, they illustrated not only a condensed synthesis of the theories and ideas which had occupied him for much of the previous two years, but also the path which lay ahead. As Miró explained, paintings such as Tête d’homme were often the gateway for his creativity: ‘…when I’ve finished something I discover it’s just a basis for what I’ve got to do next. It’s never anything more than a point of departure, and I’ve got to take off from there in the opposite direction… Far from being a finished work, to me it’s just a beginning, a hotbed for the idea that’s just sprouted, just emerged…’ (Miró, quoted in F. Trabal, ‘A Conversation with Joan Miró,’ in Joan Miró: Selected Writings and Interviews, ed., M. Rowell, London, 1987, p. 98).