- 167
Joan Miró
Estimate
90,000 - 120,000 GBP
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Description
- Joan Miró
- Personnage
- signed Miró (centre right)
- oil over monotype on paper laid down on canvas
- 58.4 by 48.3 cm., 23 by 19 in.
Provenance
Galerie Maeght, Paris
Brewster Gallery, New York
Acquired from the above by the present owner circa 1980
Brewster Gallery, New York
Acquired from the above by the present owner circa 1980
Condition
Executed on cream-colored rice paper mounted on canvas. Minor surface dirt toward lower left corner; some faint staining around thicker pigments near signature. Visible fibers throughout inherent to the work. Perimeter reinforced with tape. Under UV light: no inpainting apparent. Overall in very 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.
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.
Catalogue Note
Miró's conversation with Abstract Expressionism gracefully unfolded through the 1960s and 1970s. First exposed to the movement in New York in 1947, the artist recalled the experience as a "blow to the solar plexus." Several young painters, including Jackson Pollock, were crediting Miró as their inspiration for their wild, paint-splattered canvases. Miró was both flattered and a bit awed by the acknowledgement, not knowing immediately what to think of it. But 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.
The present work serves as an apt example of Miró's dance with the juggernaut of American abstraction. In this interesting case, the gestural expressivity read into errant streaks of paint belies the process of the work's production as a monotype. Eliminating some elements of chance from his process, Miró controls his image, readying it for wilder manipulation. The artist's work in the later part of the twentieth century is ripe with figurative and material exploration rolled into measured departures from even the newest traditions. Jacques Dupin elaborated on the semiotic importance of the figuration in these late paintings: "[t]he sign itself was no longer the image's double, it was rather reality assimilated then spat out by the painter, a reality he had incorporated then liberated, like air or light. The importance of the theme now depended on its manner of appearing or disappearing, and the few figures Miró still endlessly named and inscribed in his works are the natural go-between and guarantor of the reality of his universe. It would perhaps be more fruitful to give an account of those figures that have disappeared than of the survivors" (Jacques Dupin, Joan Miró: Catalogue raisonné. Paintings, Paris, 2003, vol. V, pp. 339-40).
Painted in 1979, Personnage appeared at a crest in Miró's public esteem near the end of his life. Though the aging Miró spent his days in Mallorca, mainland Spain sang his praises with the 1976 opening of the Joan Miró Foundation Centre for the Study of Contemporary Art, the first public venue in Barcelona dedicated to contemporary art, and the 1979 award of an honorary degree from the University of Barcelona.
The present work serves as an apt example of Miró's dance with the juggernaut of American abstraction. In this interesting case, the gestural expressivity read into errant streaks of paint belies the process of the work's production as a monotype. Eliminating some elements of chance from his process, Miró controls his image, readying it for wilder manipulation. The artist's work in the later part of the twentieth century is ripe with figurative and material exploration rolled into measured departures from even the newest traditions. Jacques Dupin elaborated on the semiotic importance of the figuration in these late paintings: "[t]he sign itself was no longer the image's double, it was rather reality assimilated then spat out by the painter, a reality he had incorporated then liberated, like air or light. The importance of the theme now depended on its manner of appearing or disappearing, and the few figures Miró still endlessly named and inscribed in his works are the natural go-between and guarantor of the reality of his universe. It would perhaps be more fruitful to give an account of those figures that have disappeared than of the survivors" (Jacques Dupin, Joan Miró: Catalogue raisonné. Paintings, Paris, 2003, vol. V, pp. 339-40).
Painted in 1979, Personnage appeared at a crest in Miró's public esteem near the end of his life. Though the aging Miró spent his days in Mallorca, mainland Spain sang his praises with the 1976 opening of the Joan Miró Foundation Centre for the Study of Contemporary Art, the first public venue in Barcelona dedicated to contemporary art, and the 1979 award of an honorary degree from the University of Barcelona.