Joan Miró

Galerie Maeght, Paris

Galerie Claude Bernard, Paris

Acquavella Galleries, New York

Harold Diamond, New York

Acquired from the above in 1973

West Palm Beach, Norton Gallery of Art, 1977

Jacques Dupin & Ariane Lelong-Mainaud, Joan Miró Catalogue raisonné: Drawings, vol.  III, Paris, 2012, no. 1738, illustrated in color

In this calligraphically powerful composition from 1963, Miró explores the subversive potential of his established lexicon of signs and symbols.  His highly graphic rendering of Personnage pays little regard to defining its titular subject, which is purely a vehicle for the artist's emphatic application of black paint.  The gesture is not unlike the tag of an urban graffiti artist, where the economized, bold mark is the unmistakable calling card of a complex artistic persona.

Jacques Dupin touches upon this very point in his discussion of Miró's paintings from the the early 1960s: "In some cases, the artist stressed the power, the brutality of a summary, rough graphism, born of a single gesture and closely related to graffiti.  In other cases, a few economical, light lines serve as counterpoint to the free play of splashes and spots of color.  Seemingly contradictory, both approaches reflect a mistrust of the sign, a desire to eliminated calculated, fixed forms from his vocabulary so as to gain in spontaneity, directness, and a purer revelation of the act of painting" (Jacques Dupin, Miró, New York, 2003, p. 303).