Joan Miró

Family of the artist
Acquired from the above by the present owner in 2000

Tokyo, National Museum of Modern Art & Kyoto, National Museum of Modern Art, Joan Miró, 1966, no. 88, illustrated in the catalogue

Jacques Dupin, Joan Miró, Life and Work, London, 1962, no. 939, illustrated p. 571
Yvon Taillandier, Creación Miró 1961, Barcelona, 1962, illustrated in colour p. 14
Claude Simon & Joan Miró, Femmes, Paris, 1965, illustrated in colour pl. 21
Juan Perucho, Joan Miró y Cataluña, Barcelona, 1969, no. 78, illustrated p. 110
Pere A. Serra, Miró i Mallorca, Barcelona, 1984, no. 103, p. 88
Jacques Dupin, Miró, Paris, 1993, no. 329, illustrated p. 308
Jacques Dupin & Ariane Lelong-Mainaud, Joan Miró. Catalogue Raisonné. Paintings, Paris, 2002, vol. IV, no. 1094, illustrated in colour p. 72

The burlap is unlined and there is no evidence of retouching under ultra-violet light. This work is in very good original condition. Colours: Overall fairly accurate in the printed catalogue illustration, although the burlap has a slightly less warm tonality in the original.
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Femme et oiseau VIII/X belongs to a group of ten compositions on burlap, on the subject of woman and bird, that Miró painted between late April and early June 1960 (fig. 1). These works are characterised by patches of bold primary colours, combined with a fine, calligraphically executed black line, which stands in sharp contrast to the rich, rough texture of the material onto which they are applied, and which forms an integral part of the composition.

 

Jacques Dupin wrote about this group of paintings: ‘The burlap in itself suggests a nocturnal atmosphere, which gives an overtone of gravity of these paintings. The various versions of Woman and Woman and Bird are characterized by a purity, serenity, and joyfulness that distinguish them from other recent productions. […] Color is used only to modulate the grounds or to animate the burlap with pure tones. […] This theme provides us with one of the keys to Miró’s cosmic imagination: it expounds the conflict between the earthly and aerial elements and, in the dialogue between the woman and the bird, renders the precariousness of the balance achieved between them. There is nothing in the least spiritual about this flight, this blueprint of the agility of desire, the scents and the heat of this summer night suggested by the flashes of color on the dark, rough-woven material. Nothing is heavy or stabilized in this poetic stylization of woman in process of metamorphosis between fixity and volatility. The analogy between the two creatures, and the interlacing of their lines are sometimes so strong that it is hard to say where the woman ends and the bird begins, whether they do not after all form one marvellous hybrid creature’ (J. Dupin, op. cit., 1962, p. 485).