Joan Miró

Pierre Matisse Gallery, New York
Dr & Mrs S. Mandel, USA (acquired from the above in 1978. Sold: Sotheby's, New York, 11th November 1999, lot 138)
Purchased at the above sale by the present owner

Saint-Paul-de-Vence, Fondation Maeght, Miró, 1968, no. 122, illustrated in colour in the catalogue
Barcelona, Recinto del Antiguo Hospital de la Santa Cruz, Joan Miró, 1968-69, no. 127
New York, Pierre Matisse Gallery, Miró, 1973, no. 6, illustrated in colour in the catalogue
Huntington, New York, The Heckscher Museum, Six Decades of Collecting: Masterworks from Long Island Collections, 1981
New York, The Queens Museum, Masterpieces of Twentieth Century Art, 1983
Roslyn, New York, Nassau County Museum of Art, Long Island Collections - The Gilded Age to the 1900s, 1993, illustrated in colour in the catalogue

Margit Rowell, Miró, New York, 1970, no. 126, illustrated
James Johnson Sweeney, Joan Miró, Barcelona, 1970, illustrated in colour p. 48
Michel Tapié, Joan Miró, Milan, 1970, no. 126, illustrated
Archives Maeght (ed.), Miró, l'artiste et l'oeuvre, Paris, 1971, no. 105, illustrated in colour p. 105
Pere Gimferrer, Miró, Catalan universel, Barcelona, 1978, no. 89, illustrated in colour p. 91
Rosa Maria Malet, Joan Miró, New York, 1983, no. 98, illustrated in colour
Francesc Català-Roca & Lluís Permanyer, Miró, noventa años, Barcelona, 1984, detail illustrated in a photograph no. 46
Jacques Dupin, Joan Miró. Catalogue Raisonné. Paintings, Paris, 2002, vol. IV, no. 1283, illustrated in colour p. 222 

The canvas is unlined and there is no evidence of retouching under ultra-violet light. There is some paint shrinkage in the black pigment in the lower left quadrant, which is an inherent part of the artist's execution. Apart from a light crease in the upper left quadrant, this work is in very good original 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."

Painted in 1968, Femmes et oiseaux dans la nuit is a remarkable example of the expressive power of Miró's imagery, bordering between representation and abstraction. For the artist, figures, birds, stars, the moon, the sun, night and dusk formed a poetic language. He first introduced the motif of a woman with a bird, in a realistic manner, in his paintings of 1917, but it was only after his celebrated Constellations series of 1941, in which women, birds and stars feature prominently, that this theme became the primary subject of his art. Commenting on this subject matter, the artist himself pronounced: 'It might be a dog, a woman, or whatever. I don't really care. Of course, while I am painting, I see a woman or a bird in my mind, indeed, very tangibly a woman or a bird. Afterward, it's up to you' (J. Miró & Georges Raillard, Ceci est la couleur de mes rêves, Paris, 1977, p. 128).

 

Whilst taking recognisable objects as his starting point, in the present work Miró builds his composition using a pictorial lexicon of signs and symbols, in a style that characterised his post-war production. After his trip to New York in 1947, Miró became acquainted with the art of the Abstract Expressionists and was fascinated by their new techniques and their aesthetic agenda. As the artist later recalled, the experience of seeing canvases of the Abstract Expressionists was like 'a blow to the solar plexus.' Several young painters, including Jackson Pollock, were crediting Miró as their inspiration for their wild, paint-splattered canvases. In the years that followed, he created works that responded to the enthusiasm of this younger generation of American painters and the spontaneity of their art. It was also under their influence that he started painting on a larger scale, such as in the present work. The paintings he created at the end of the 1940s and the beginning of the 1950s are a fascinating response to these new trends of abstraction, while at the same time showing Miró's allegiance to his own artistic pursuits. 'For me a form is never something abstract,' he once said, 'it is always a sign of something. It is always a man, a bird, or something else. For me painting is never form for form's sake' (quoted in M. Rowell, op. cit., p. 207).