Joan Miró

G. David Thompson, Pittsburgh

Pierre Matisse Gallery, New York

Sale: Christie's, New York, 12th May 1988, lot 347

Yayoi Gallery, Tokyo (purchased at the above sale)

Acquired from the above by the present owner

New York, Pierre Matisse Gallery, Miró, Recent Paintings, 1953, no. 47, illustrated in colour in the catalogue

Jacques Dupin & Ariane Lelong-Mainaud, Joan Miró, Catalogue raisonné, Paintings, 1942-55, Paris, 2001, vol. III, no. 911, illustrated p. 190

Painted on an irregular slab of fibro-cement. Securely affixed through four hooks to the mount, the edges are visible in the frame. There is some pigment loss and rubbing to the parts where the hooks hold the slab in place. The colours are strong and bright. This work is in overall good condition. Colours: Overall fairly accurate in the printed catalogue illustration.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

‘After Altamira, all is decadence’, Picasso was said to have exclaimed on visiting the famed painted caves in Northern Spain. It is a sentiment echoed by Miró in this work, which with its fragmentary, organic form, harks back to a time when the primitive artist was an anonymous craftsman, harmoniously integrated within society. As early as 1938, Miró wrote:  ‘I’d like to try my hand at sculpture, pottery, prints, to have a press. Insofar as possible I’d like to get beyond easel painting, which in my opinion pursues a petty aim, and find ways of getting closer, in terms of painting, to the broad mass of human beings who have always been in my thoughts’ (quoted by Jacques Dupin, Joan Miró, London, 1962, p. 432).

This open-mindedness to medium, though first expressed in 1938, was to become a defining feature of Miró’s broad-reaching and experimental career. It was during this period that Miró undertook several large scale painted murals at a variety of sites: Harvard University (1951), the UNESCO building in Paris (1958), the University of St. Gallen (1964), and even a restaurant within a large Cincinnati skyscraper (1947). For Miró, these projects fulfilled two of his most heartfelt ambitions – to engage in collaborative projects, and to integrate his art with the most advanced form of modern civilisation. Set against the backdrop of these large commissions, the present work, stands as a fitting relic to this onset of generous public spirit. The fibro-cement allows for unexpectedly bright, deep and uniform colours; blues, reds and blacks shine out from an otherwise neutral base. In this sense it is much closer to his oil paintings than his later ceramics, whose colouration is visibly dampened by both varnish and heat. Of Miró’s paintings of this period, Dupin has written of how they ‘disclose the artist’s pursuit of a fruitful clumsiness in his graphism, an attempt, as it were, to approximate the state of innocence requisite to coming upon some primitive treasure-trove’ (ibid., p. 442). This last phrase, mirroring the reaction of Picasso at Altamira, is a fitting epitaph to this powerful, primitive fragment of Miró’s imagination.