Sixty Works by Modern Masters - Flipbook - Page 61
Joan Miró
Joan Miró
Spanish, 1893 - 1983
Femmes, Oiseaux, Etoile, 1942
Watercolour, charcoal and pastel on paper
25¼ x 19 inches / 64 x 48.5 cm
Signed in the lower right quadrant: Miró
Signed again, titled, inscribed and dated on the reverse: Joan Miró Femmes, oiseaux, étoile Palma Majorque 9.1.1942
Femmes, Oiseaux, Etoile was
completed in 1942, the year in
which Miró returned to Barcelona
from Palma de Mallorca after his
most important retrospective had
been held at the Museum of Modern
Art in New York. Whilst in Barcelona,
and as Spain was immersed in civil
war and the Nazis occupied much
of mainland Europe, Miró began
working mainly on paper.
The present work reflects a style
typical of Miró’s celebrated
Barcelona series, made up of a
group of fifty lithographs on which
he embarked in 1939. These works
were finally published in 1944, and
evoke the climate of concern and
desperation prevailing in Europe at
the time.
60
Provenance
Galerie René Drouot, Paris
Caroline & Erwin Swann, Bucks County, PA
The Gallery of Modern Art, New York, 1964-1969
William Zierler, Inc, New York, 1970
Mr & Mrs Gross, Greenwich, CT
Richard Gray Gallery, New York
Private collection, UK
Exhibited
New York, William Zierler Gallery, New Acquisitions, fall 1970, no. 37,
illustrated in colour on the cover of the catalogue
Literature
Jacques Dupin & Ariane Lelong-Mainaud, Joan Miró, Catalogue raisonné of
Drawings, vol II, 1938-1959, Paris, 2010, no. 905, illustrated in colour p. 64
This painting is accompanied by a certificate of
authentication kindly issued by Jacques Dupin