Joan Miró

Robert Elkon, New York
Private Collection, New York (acquired from the above on September 27, 1956)
Thence by descent

Executed on cream-colored wove paper hinged to a mount at two places along top edge on verso. Edges are cut. Some pencil marking on verso. Sheet and medium are well preserved. This work is in excellent condition.
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Executed in 1936, the present work is part of a series of works Miró created for the collective publication of a program for the Compagnie du diable écarlate's production of Ubu enchaîné. An absurdist play by the Symbolist writer Alfred Jarry which was originally published in 1900, Ubu enchaîné was controversially performed at the Théâtre de l'Exposition universelle in 1937. Today the play is considered a precursor of the theatre of the absurd, subsequently influencing both the Dada and Surrealist artists.

The central character, Ubu Roi (Père Ubu), was the ultimate modernist anti-hero. Cruel and coarse, disinterested in conventions of proper society, Ubu ingratiates himself into the court of the King of Poland, whom he eventually overthrows. His rise to the throne and the tribulations that followed were of great fascination to the Surrealists, who saw a prescient reflection of concurrent society and its key political players. More specifically in the art of Miró, Ubu Roi represented a thinly veiled critique of the Franco regime in his native Spain. The present work is one of his two known depictions of Mère Ubu. Père Ubu's wife, she figures prominently in the story, first scheming to steal her husband's wealth and later impersonating the angel Gabriel to trick her husband into forgiving her.