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Lot Essay
‘The requirements of ceramics altered Miró’s line, simplified his colours, exaggerated his rhythms. He dove into nature’s vast reserve, which surrounded him and the abandoned objects that he gathered. We run into his familiar themes, but the bird and the woman, serpents and stars have changed worlds and have submitted to ceramic’s materiality as well as to the rules of its game. The union of line and real space, of colour and substance, recaptures the primitive resonance of his savage paintings. Here, it is the flames of the kiln, after a slow alchemical process, that perform the integration of mind into matter’ —J. DUPIN
Filled with the raw energy and spontaneous, amorphous forms that characterise Joan Miró’s style, this unique ceramic, titled Vase, dates from the artist’s earliest collaborations with his friend and fellow artist, Josep Llorens Artigas. Here, form and colour appear suspended in almost balletic tension with one another, as the fluid strokes of the artist’s brush fill the gently curving surface with symbols and characters plucked from Miró’s highly personal, biomorphic symbolic system, their stark black outlines filled with swathes of glowing pigment. Appearing for the first time at auction, Vase was formally in the private collection of the pioneering architect, Gira Sarabhai, whose family’s patronage of the arts transformed the cultural scene in Ahmedabad after the Indian Independence Act. Known for their efforts to foster creativity and innovation in a variety of fields, the Sarabhais nurtured a wide network of international relationships, hosting such luminaries as Le Corbusier, Alexander Calder and Robert Rauschenberg at their home, and creating a richly creative environment for their artistic friends to work in.
Miró’s ceramics were the product of his close relationship with Josep Llorens Artigas, a highly skilled artist who’s work in the medium focused on creating unique pieces that expressed the personality of their creator. Their friendship blossomed during their early years in Barcelona, where the pair met at the Cercle Artístic de Sant Lluc in 1912, and then during their studies together at the art school run by Francesc Galí. Both artists moved to Paris in the 1920s, where their paths often crossed and overlapped, as they each forged an artistic career for themselves. Their long, and highly productive collaboration in ceramics began towards the end of the Second World War as they both found themselves once again in Spain in the summer of 1944. Artigas’s studio was filled with vases and pots that had been slightly misshapen or discoloured during the first stage of the firing process, and Miró was fascinated by the irregular forms and unique hues of this vast array of beautifully crafted objects. Choosing the vases he found most intriguing, Miró began to paint directly on to their surfaces, with Artigas producing a series of special glazes for him to use. These allowed Miró to achieve a greater luminosity in his forms, the fluid glaze providing more vibrant, brighter, and translucent hues than traditional materials.
As Jacques Dupin has explained, these experiments in ceramics allowed Miró to explore new creative avenues, opening his highly personal artistic language to new possibilities: ‘The requirements of ceramics altered Miró’s line, simplified his colours, exaggerated his rhythms. He dove into nature’s vast reserve, which surrounded him and the abandoned objects that he gathered. We run into his familiar themes, but the bird and the woman, serpents and stars have changed worlds and have submitted to ceramic’s materiality as well as to the rules of its game. The union of line and real space, of colour and substance, recaptures the primitive resonance of his savage paintings. Here, it is the flames of the kiln, after a slow alchemical process, that perform the integration of mind into matter’ (J. Dupin, ‘Terres de Grand Feu,’ in Joan Miró - Josep Llorens Artigas: Ceramics Catalogue raisonné, 1941-1981, ed. J. Punyet Miró & J. Gardy Artigas, Paris, 2007, p. 22).
Filled with the raw energy and spontaneous, amorphous forms that characterise Joan Miró’s style, this unique ceramic, titled Vase, dates from the artist’s earliest collaborations with his friend and fellow artist, Josep Llorens Artigas. Here, form and colour appear suspended in almost balletic tension with one another, as the fluid strokes of the artist’s brush fill the gently curving surface with symbols and characters plucked from Miró’s highly personal, biomorphic symbolic system, their stark black outlines filled with swathes of glowing pigment. Appearing for the first time at auction, Vase was formally in the private collection of the pioneering architect, Gira Sarabhai, whose family’s patronage of the arts transformed the cultural scene in Ahmedabad after the Indian Independence Act. Known for their efforts to foster creativity and innovation in a variety of fields, the Sarabhais nurtured a wide network of international relationships, hosting such luminaries as Le Corbusier, Alexander Calder and Robert Rauschenberg at their home, and creating a richly creative environment for their artistic friends to work in.
Miró’s ceramics were the product of his close relationship with Josep Llorens Artigas, a highly skilled artist who’s work in the medium focused on creating unique pieces that expressed the personality of their creator. Their friendship blossomed during their early years in Barcelona, where the pair met at the Cercle Artístic de Sant Lluc in 1912, and then during their studies together at the art school run by Francesc Galí. Both artists moved to Paris in the 1920s, where their paths often crossed and overlapped, as they each forged an artistic career for themselves. Their long, and highly productive collaboration in ceramics began towards the end of the Second World War as they both found themselves once again in Spain in the summer of 1944. Artigas’s studio was filled with vases and pots that had been slightly misshapen or discoloured during the first stage of the firing process, and Miró was fascinated by the irregular forms and unique hues of this vast array of beautifully crafted objects. Choosing the vases he found most intriguing, Miró began to paint directly on to their surfaces, with Artigas producing a series of special glazes for him to use. These allowed Miró to achieve a greater luminosity in his forms, the fluid glaze providing more vibrant, brighter, and translucent hues than traditional materials.
As Jacques Dupin has explained, these experiments in ceramics allowed Miró to explore new creative avenues, opening his highly personal artistic language to new possibilities: ‘The requirements of ceramics altered Miró’s line, simplified his colours, exaggerated his rhythms. He dove into nature’s vast reserve, which surrounded him and the abandoned objects that he gathered. We run into his familiar themes, but the bird and the woman, serpents and stars have changed worlds and have submitted to ceramic’s materiality as well as to the rules of its game. The union of line and real space, of colour and substance, recaptures the primitive resonance of his savage paintings. Here, it is the flames of the kiln, after a slow alchemical process, that perform the integration of mind into matter’ (J. Dupin, ‘Terres de Grand Feu,’ in Joan Miró - Josep Llorens Artigas: Ceramics Catalogue raisonné, 1941-1981, ed. J. Punyet Miró & J. Gardy Artigas, Paris, 2007, p. 22).