胡安·米羅

Pierre Matisse Gallery, New York
Dorothy M. Skinner & John S. Cook, Oak Ridge, Tennessee (acquired from the above in 1976)
A bequest from the above to the present owner in 2007

New York, Pierre Matisse Gallery, Miró Sculpture, 1976, no. 21

Alain Jouffroy & Joan Teixidor, Miró Sculptures, Paris, 1980, no. 275, illustration of another cast p. 192
Emilio Fernández Miró & Pilar Ortega Chapel, Joan Miró Sculptures. Catalogue raisonné 1928-1982, Paris, 2006, no. 319, colour illustration of another cast p. 302

Varied green and brown mottled patina. The sculpture has been placed outdoors, which has resulted in variations in the patina, notably to the upper right quadrant and on the sides. Apart from a few small localised patches of corrosion to the bottom right corner and some abrasions to the surface, this work is in good condition.
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.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

Executed in 1974, Personnage dans la nuit was created during a period in which sculpture was at the forefront of the artist’s work. Miró’s use of bronze produced surprising, fantastical shapes in which his characteristic forms of women, birds and stars - integral to his painted œuvre (fig. 1) - took three-dimensional form. The present work contains two of these definitive forms and Rosa Maria Malet writes about the opportunities sculpture gave his work: ‘Sculpture enabled him to underline certain essential aspects of his work. We can easily see, for instance, that there is one theme that appears very frequently: woman. In sculpture the female body is one of those cases that can admit the most ambivalent treatments. Practically any object can be used for the purpose: a pumpkin, a root, a loaf, a length of piping with a large perforation symbolizing the woman’s sex, etc. In order to achieve this effect, Miró subjects his objects to a degree of tension, a reorganisation. Objects by Miró do not function as objects, but as pretexts, as starting points. Placed in a certain way, they acquire intentionality’ (R. M. Malet, Joan Miró, Barcelona, 1993, p. 28).

Miró experimented with a variety of media in the creation of his sculptures. He worked in ceramic as well as the more traditional method of modelling in clay and plaster for casting in bronze. One of his great innovations was the employment of found materials, which he either uniquely assembled in a collage fashion or cast in bronze for integration with freely modelled forms. While the processes and materials that make up Miró’s sculptures can be described and identified, an explanation or interpretation of the specific forms continuously eludes us. Just as Dupin views the works as independent presences that exist by their own logic, Joan Texidor notes, ‘The personages now achieve a more self-assured forcefulness, they have become guardian effigies. We could, thus, justly qualify them as enormous. And enormity is precisely the first feature to impress us. Yet, slowly, the initial impression of their massiveness shifts toward other sensations. Finally, we clearly sense that these enigmatic totems have once again arisen before us to question us’ (quoted in Jacques Dupin, Miró, Barcelona, 1993, p. 382).