Joán Miró

Pierre Matisse Gallery, New York
Acquavella Modern Art, New York

Exh. Cat., Saint-Paul, Fondation Maeght, Joan Miró: Peintures, sculptures, dessins, céramiques, 1956-1979, 1979, no. 294, pp. 96 and 190, illustration of another cast
Alain Jouffroy & Joan Teixidor, Miró Sculptures, Paris, 1980, p. 187, no. 251
Exh. Cat., Saint-Paul, Fondation Maeght, Hommage á Joan Miró, 1984, no. 220, p. 89
Exh. Cat., Montreal, Museum of Fine Arts, Miró in Montreal, 1986, pp. 155 and 257
Exh. Cat.,Munich, Kunsthalle der Hypo-Kulturstiftung, Joan Miró: Skulpturen, 1990, no. 93, illustration of another cast
Exh. Cat., Saint-Paul, Fondation Maeght, Joan Miró: Métamorphoses des formes, 2001, no. 151, pp. 90 and 230, color illustration of another cast
Exh. Cat., Andros, Basil & Elisa Goulandris Foundation, Joan Miró: In the orbit of the imaginary, 2002, no. 65, color illustration of another cast
Emilio Fernández Miró & Pilar Ortega Chapel, Joan Miró. Sculptures. Catalogue raisonné 1928-1982, Paris, 2006, p. 278, no. 290, illustration of another cast

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Miró's totemic Femme et oiseaux  is among the most arresting of the artist's late sculptures, created by assembling a selection of bizarre found objects and casting them in bronze. Each composite element – be it a chair or shoe – is transfigured by the casting process and together, in the viewer's eye, they are assimilated into the form of an improbable being: an automaton, a cadavre exquis, a portent of repressed desires.

This work is imbued with great significance when seen in the context of the Surrealist's preoccupation with the femme fatale and, in particular, with occurrences of this phenomenal figure in myth and in nature. One such example features time and again in Surrealist imagery: the female Mantis. This spectral predator was venerated for its ability to mimic its environment and for its uniquely cannibalistic tendencies. For the Surrealists, this combination of eroticism and death was all too tempting. Miró's spindly, spiky Femme et oiseaux, appears almost organic, camouflaged, waiting in eerie stillness to attack. Seemingly inert, its stilted pose threatens something imminent, potentially fatal. And yet this phantasm is the product of mere everyday objects, given meaning only by the artist's whim; true to Surrealist principles, Miró demonstrates how the marvelous is always present in even the most banal of objects.