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拍品专文
“During these tragic years, I have continued working every day, and this has helped me keep my balance—my work has kept me on my feet; otherwise I would have gone under; it would have been a catastrophe.” – Joan Miró (letter to P. Loeb, 30 August 1945; quoted in M. Rowell, p. 197).
In 1939, Joan Miró published a statement in the avant-garde journal, Cahiers d’Art, in which he boldly proclaimed the power of art in times of hardship and fear. Faced with the harrowing reality of war in his home country of Spain, and the rapidly worsening political tensions that were then sweeping across Europe, Miró’s response was not only timely, but also a defiant reminder of the importance of continuing to create in times of threat. “The outer world, the world of contemporary events, always has an influence on the painter—that goes without saying. 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 present, which is particularly ignoble today, in order to approach new realities, to offer other men the possibility of rising above the present” (“Statement,” in Cahiers d’Art, Paris, April-May, 1939; quoted in Rowell, p. 166).
The two drawings from this distinguished family collection offer a rare, concentrated glimpse into Miró’s astounding creativity and perseverance during the Second World War, as he continued to work in the shadow of the conflict. Created over the course of just two and a half weeks in October and November 1942, together they reveal the multiple threads that occupied and overlapped within the artist’s imagination during this period, simultaneously harking back to the configuration of forms that had populated his famed series of Constellation paintings of 1940-1941, and boldly pushing into new realms of creative experimentation.
Following the outbreak of the war, and anticipating the occupation off France by Germany, Miró and his family returned to Spain in July 1940. Over the course of the following five years, he lived and worked largely in isolation, cut off from the art world and his network of painter friends and acquaintances in Paris. Though plagued with anxiety about the conflict and his ever-worsening financial circumstances, these years spent working intensively on his own, exploring his meandering thoughts without interference, allowed Miró to reach a new level of pictorial maturity and self-confidence in his abilities. As Jacques Dupin has explained, the array of watercolors, drawings, pastels and gouaches that emerged as a result of this forced break were “characterized by a freedom of invention and marvelous effortlessness” (Dupin, p. 257).
Common shapes and forms appear across the three different works offered in this sale, conjuring a cast of amorphous figures that appear at once familiar and distinctly otherworldly, their bodies an amalgamation of geometric and flowing, curvilinear shapes. Showcasing the endless variety and inventiveness of Miró’s pictorial vocabulary, these three compositions also reveal the importance of his ongoing explorations of materiality in his works on paper. Though wartime restrictions had left him short of many materials, these drawings are nevertheless filled with the same intensity of expression and lyrical approach to form as his most complex paintings in oil, created using an array of contrasting techniques and media. Varying types of inks, pencils and pigments were combined within a single sheet, creating intriguing juxtapositions and unexpected correspondences that fed Miró’s fervent imagination and prompted new directions of thinking in his work.
“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.” – Joan Miró (quoted in F. Trabal, “A Conversation with Joan Miró,” in M. Rowell, ed., Joan Miró: Selected Writings and Interviews, London, 1987, p. 98).
In a notebook dated 1941-9142, Joan Miró meticulously noted an array of ideas and projects that he hoped to begin working on in the coming months, organizing his thoughts into sections on different media, from sculpture to stained glass, etching to pyrography. Among the most revealing passages relate to his works on paper: “Provoke accidents on the large sheets of pastel paper… that way there will not only be a greater wealth of possibilities to start out from, but there will also be a parallel with previous drawings, for it is essential to always avoid any break in my oeuvre; furthermore, that way the drawings will draw themselves according to the laws of nature just as flowers in a field unfurl and bloom when the time is right” (quoted in M. Rowell, Joan Miró: Selected Writings and Interviews, Boston, 1986, p. 188).
Created on 10 November 1942, Femmes, étoiles embodies many of these key aspects of Miró’s creative process during these years. The sheet is marked by passages of soft, subtly variegated color, transitioning from rich terracotta to velvety gray, which appear to have been added spontaneously to the page, their loose forms the result of chance rather than a predetermined pattern. Over these loose fields of pigment, Miró covers the sheet with a series of flowing, biomorphic figures, familiar characters and creatures that suggest a fantastical world, in which a mysterious drama plays out. Using a dark, black ink to describe the figure in the foreground, filling its simple triangular body with a solid block of pigment, Miró imbues the character with a greater sense of presence within the scene, the prominence of the ink contrasting with the delicate pencil lines of the rest of the creatures.
As Jacques Dupin has noted of Miró’s approach in these works on paper, “The object of all these explorations it to determine the relationship between drawing and the materials, the relationship between line and space. The artist was not so much interested in expressing something with appropriate technique, as in making the material express itself in its own way” (Miró, New York, 1993, p. 260). By including these contrasting materials, ink and pencil, in a single sheet, Miró emphasizes the different qualities of each, the varying thickness of line, the richness of texture, and the alternating sense of delicacy or strength that could be achieved.
In 1939, Joan Miró published a statement in the avant-garde journal, Cahiers d’Art, in which he boldly proclaimed the power of art in times of hardship and fear. Faced with the harrowing reality of war in his home country of Spain, and the rapidly worsening political tensions that were then sweeping across Europe, Miró’s response was not only timely, but also a defiant reminder of the importance of continuing to create in times of threat. “The outer world, the world of contemporary events, always has an influence on the painter—that goes without saying. 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 present, which is particularly ignoble today, in order to approach new realities, to offer other men the possibility of rising above the present” (“Statement,” in Cahiers d’Art, Paris, April-May, 1939; quoted in Rowell, p. 166).
The two drawings from this distinguished family collection offer a rare, concentrated glimpse into Miró’s astounding creativity and perseverance during the Second World War, as he continued to work in the shadow of the conflict. Created over the course of just two and a half weeks in October and November 1942, together they reveal the multiple threads that occupied and overlapped within the artist’s imagination during this period, simultaneously harking back to the configuration of forms that had populated his famed series of Constellation paintings of 1940-1941, and boldly pushing into new realms of creative experimentation.
Following the outbreak of the war, and anticipating the occupation off France by Germany, Miró and his family returned to Spain in July 1940. Over the course of the following five years, he lived and worked largely in isolation, cut off from the art world and his network of painter friends and acquaintances in Paris. Though plagued with anxiety about the conflict and his ever-worsening financial circumstances, these years spent working intensively on his own, exploring his meandering thoughts without interference, allowed Miró to reach a new level of pictorial maturity and self-confidence in his abilities. As Jacques Dupin has explained, the array of watercolors, drawings, pastels and gouaches that emerged as a result of this forced break were “characterized by a freedom of invention and marvelous effortlessness” (Dupin, p. 257).
Common shapes and forms appear across the three different works offered in this sale, conjuring a cast of amorphous figures that appear at once familiar and distinctly otherworldly, their bodies an amalgamation of geometric and flowing, curvilinear shapes. Showcasing the endless variety and inventiveness of Miró’s pictorial vocabulary, these three compositions also reveal the importance of his ongoing explorations of materiality in his works on paper. Though wartime restrictions had left him short of many materials, these drawings are nevertheless filled with the same intensity of expression and lyrical approach to form as his most complex paintings in oil, created using an array of contrasting techniques and media. Varying types of inks, pencils and pigments were combined within a single sheet, creating intriguing juxtapositions and unexpected correspondences that fed Miró’s fervent imagination and prompted new directions of thinking in his work.
“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.” – Joan Miró (quoted in F. Trabal, “A Conversation with Joan Miró,” in M. Rowell, ed., Joan Miró: Selected Writings and Interviews, London, 1987, p. 98).
In a notebook dated 1941-9142, Joan Miró meticulously noted an array of ideas and projects that he hoped to begin working on in the coming months, organizing his thoughts into sections on different media, from sculpture to stained glass, etching to pyrography. Among the most revealing passages relate to his works on paper: “Provoke accidents on the large sheets of pastel paper… that way there will not only be a greater wealth of possibilities to start out from, but there will also be a parallel with previous drawings, for it is essential to always avoid any break in my oeuvre; furthermore, that way the drawings will draw themselves according to the laws of nature just as flowers in a field unfurl and bloom when the time is right” (quoted in M. Rowell, Joan Miró: Selected Writings and Interviews, Boston, 1986, p. 188).
Created on 10 November 1942, Femmes, étoiles embodies many of these key aspects of Miró’s creative process during these years. The sheet is marked by passages of soft, subtly variegated color, transitioning from rich terracotta to velvety gray, which appear to have been added spontaneously to the page, their loose forms the result of chance rather than a predetermined pattern. Over these loose fields of pigment, Miró covers the sheet with a series of flowing, biomorphic figures, familiar characters and creatures that suggest a fantastical world, in which a mysterious drama plays out. Using a dark, black ink to describe the figure in the foreground, filling its simple triangular body with a solid block of pigment, Miró imbues the character with a greater sense of presence within the scene, the prominence of the ink contrasting with the delicate pencil lines of the rest of the creatures.
As Jacques Dupin has noted of Miró’s approach in these works on paper, “The object of all these explorations it to determine the relationship between drawing and the materials, the relationship between line and space. The artist was not so much interested in expressing something with appropriate technique, as in making the material express itself in its own way” (Miró, New York, 1993, p. 260). By including these contrasting materials, ink and pencil, in a single sheet, Miró emphasizes the different qualities of each, the varying thickness of line, the richness of texture, and the alternating sense of delicacy or strength that could be achieved.