Joan Miró

Pilar Juncosa de Miró (wife of the artist)
A gift from the above to the present owner in 1995

Bern, Kunsthalle, Joan Miró, Margrit Linck, Oskar Dalvit, 1949, no. 18
Paris, Musée National d'Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Dessins de Miró, 1978, no. 184, illustrated in the catalogue
Palma, Fundació Pilar i Joan Miró a Mallorca, 1992-1993

Jacques Dupin, Joan Miró: Life and Work, London, 1962, no. 603, illustrated p. 546
Jacques Dupin & Ariane Lelong-Mainaud, Joan Miró, Catalogue raisonné. Paintings 1942-1955, Paris, 2001, vol. III, no. 698, illustrated p. 42 (illustrated without the signature)

The canvas is not lined and there do not appear to be any signs of retouching visible under UV light. There is some extremely minor frame abrasion to the lower right corner. Otherwise, this work is in overall very good condition. Colours: overall fairly accurate in the printed catalogue, though slightly warmer in the original.
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Femmes et Oiseau was executed in 1944, at a time when Miró was rapidly gaining widespread international aclaim. Populated with highly stylised and abstracted figures the present work uses the vocabulary of signs developed a few years earlier in the celebrated Constellations series. Jacques Dupin succintly captures the essence of the group of paintings from which the present work derives: 'There are about twenty canvases which are not painted in oil. The grounds are watercolour washes in broken or mixed tones and produce an atmosphere of uncertainty. On these the artist has drawn in India ink with marvellous passion. The ink produces odd effects of haziness and splatter on the canvas, which Miró uses to best possible advantage. Here again he brings to mind the art of Japanese calligraphers.' (Jacques Dupin, Life and Work, London, 1962, p. 378)

This jewel like work reflects Miró's preference for small canvases in these years as described in his working notes: 'don't do excessively large canvases. That could be a sign of mediocrity.' (quoted in Margit Rowell, ed.. Joan Miró, Selected Writings and Interviews, Boston, 1986, p. 184-85) Miró also gave up his practice of assigning poetic or elusive titles to his pictures as he had done in the 1930s. Favouring more straight forward classifications for his works depicting women, birds, stars and moons, the artist did not however compromise his imaginitve impulses when rendering these forms. In fact, it was these compositions from the mid-1940s that would ultimately inspire the Abstract Expressionists in the United States.