Sixty Works by Modern Masters - Flipbook - Page 71
Joan Miró
Joan Miró
Spanish, 1893 - 1983
Composition Subrealiste, 1949
Pencil, wax crayon and India ink wash on paper
12 x 11¾ inches / 30.5 x 28.5 cm
Signed and dated on the reverse: Miró 1949
Towards the end of the 1940s, the
influence of the New York Abstract
Expressionists was being felt by
Miró. He first saw their work in
1947, and described the experience
as ‘a blow to the solar plexus’,
subsequently attempting to recreate
the spontaneity of their art in his own
works. The present picture, realised
in 1949, contains a preliminary nod
towards the Abstract Expressionist
movement, with a wash in India
ink in the background recalling the
bold, impulsive brushstrokes of the
American painters.
Miró never fully embraced pure
abstraction in his pictures, however,
and the type of surrealist and
symbolic imagery we see in the
foreground here was to remain a
constant in his oeuvre.
Provenance
Galerie Melki, Paris
Hayakawa Gallery, Osaka
Private Collection
Exhibited
Saint-Paul de Vence, Maeght Foundation, Barcelone 1947-2007,
July-November 2007, no. 6, illustrated p. 231
Literature
Jacques Dupin & Ariane Lelong-Mainaud, Joan Miró, Catalogue raisonné
Drawings, vol. II, 1938-1959, Paris, 2010, no. 1192, illustrated in colour
p. 188
This painting is accompanied by a
certificate of authentication kindly
issued by Jacques Dupin
"You can look at a painting for a whole week
and then never think about it again. You can also
look at a painting for a second and think about
it for the rest of your life."
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