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Spaightwood Galleries
120 Main Street, Upton MA 01568-6193; 800-809-3343
The Cosmological Vision of Joan Miró:
Aquatints, Etchings, Linocuts, Lithographs, and Woodcuts, 1934-1981
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Joan Miró (1893-1983) is one of the giants of twentieth-century art, and for many, one of its most spiritual artists. Miró’s fellow Catalonian, Antoni Tàpies, pointed to one of the keys of Miró’s greatness: "Miró offered us the continual, changing and infinite flux of nature; faced with immutable laws, [he offered us] the rhythms and spontaneous ebb and flow of the waves in a living world.... He showed us that we are all equal because we are all made from the stars themselves. He made the wretched see that they carried all the riches of the universe within themselves. He told us that, before things could grow bigger and better, love had to impregnate everything . . . that we ought to seek once more for the purity and innocence of the first day."
Tàpies is not the only one who holds Miró up as one of the essential artists of the twentieth century. It is becoming more and more clear that, as Michael Kimmelman suggests in his 1993 New York Times review of the Museum of Modern Art’s Centennial Miró show, the artist "gave free rein to an imagination that has no parallel in the history of art" and adds that "it gave to the world . . . an unforgettable and entirely original vein of comic and erotic fantasy." Kimmelman goes on to proclaim Miró the most "accessible painter among the great figures of twentieth-century art. . . . His paintings can be so joyous and hilarious that you laugh out loud in front of them. But they have their darker side, too, and the two sides of the artist’s imagination mixed."
In another New York Times piece, Hayden Herrera reminds us that in 1924, after Miró had discovered his own "formal language," Picasso told him that "he was the only artist after Picasso himself to have carried painting forward." Acclaimed as the "greatest surrealist of us all" by Andre Breton, hailed by Pierre Alechinsky as one of the chief inspirations of the COBRA movement, and acclaimed by critics like Clement Greenburg and Arthur C. Danto as the artist whose 1941 show at the Museum of Modern Art overwhelmed the New York painters who saw it because "it answered questions that were inchoately felt, namely how to make the next move." As Lee Krasner, one of the leading Abstract Expressionist painters and the wife of Jackson Pollock, put it, Miró’s paintings were "little miracles."
Barbara Rose perhaps best explains Miró’s importance when she notes, "Miró’s contribution to current painting is inestimable," and adds: "surrealist space, at least as it was developed by Miró, is open, expansive, indeterminate, as opposed to the closed, finite restrictive space of cubism, with its layered planes and silhouetted shapes. Surrealist space is as fluid as the thought process involved in the technique of free association that inspired surrealist automatism. Certainly it is no accident that the discovery of the unconscious, as well as man’s initial experiences in exploring atmospheric outer space, coincided with the conceptualization of a new kind of pictorial space that is both continuous and unbounded."
Our show includes a number of Miró's early surrealist pochoirs from the 1930s and 40s, and an extensive selection of over 100 pieces (often rather large) from 1934-1981. Miró has always been one of our favorite artists, and for this show, we will be putting out as many of our favorite pieces (the best of the best) as the walls will hold. This will be Madison's last chance to see these pieces except over the internet—we are still planning on being in Upton by the beginning of July.
Select Bibliography: Miro's Lithographs are catalogued in a 6-volume set published by Galerie Maeght; all numerical references begining with (M. ) are to these volumes. His aquatints, drypoints, etchings, linocuts, and woodcuts have been catalogued by Jacques Dupin in a 4-volume set published by Lelong Editeur. Miro contributed many original prints to books and catalogues; he was also a lover of poetry and fine books and collaborated in a number of deluxe livres d'artiste. These are catalogued by Patrick Cramer (who also edited the last two volumes of the lithograph catalogue raisonné above). Cramer numbers refer to this volume. The single best visual tour of Miro's artistic career excluding prints and drawings is that published on the occasion of the Museum of Modern Art’s Centennial Miró retrospective by the Museum of Modern Art and edited by Caroline Lanchner. The standard critical biography is Jacques Dupin's Joan Miró: Life and Work (NY: Abrams, 1962), updated in 1992 as Joan Miró.
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La Bague d'Aurore / Aurora's ring (D. 143). Original color etching and aquatint, 1957. 87signed and numbered impressions (60 on Rives paper numbered from 1/60-60/60) and 17 on Japon nacre paper numbered 1/17-2/17 and i/xv-xv/xv) published by Louis Broder, Paris on paper measuring 380x280mm. This was one of the additional works that Miró created as part of the Suite separate from the original six engravings of La Bague d'Aurore (which were printed on paper measuring 140x115mm). Our impression is n. 38/60 and is printed on Rives. Image size: 113x140mm. Price: $7500.
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Rouge et bleu / Red and Blue (Maeght 269). Original color lithograph, 1960. 100 signed and numbered impressions. Executed after Miró and Joanet Artigas returned from a trip to Japan (during which Artigas celebrated his wedding), this work has been featured in a number of European Miró retrospectives. Image size: 655x465mm. Price: $15,000.
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Astre et fumée / Star and Smoke (Dupin 424). Original color aquatint and etching with carborundum, 1967. 75 signed and numbered impressions on Mandeure rag paper printed by Arte Adrien Maeght and published by Maeght éditeur, Paris. One of Miró's most important prints, this work was selected by the Museum of Modern Art's Riva Castleman as the only Miró included in Modern Art in Prints (NY: MoMA, 1973), p. 39, an exhibition that was shown at MoMA before touring in the Far East, Australia, and New Zealand. Castleman wrote of this work, "Liquid washes form the smoky passages that swirl around the crusty star-disks. Raspy linear jottings are magical messages in a code devised by the artist. This abstract, placeless composition is typical of the abandoned gaiety of Miró's inventively modern spirit." She adds, "Spontaneity and rhythms were basic factors in the artistic developments occurring in the decade after World War II. Miró displays in his work the roots from which some of these developments grew." Image size: 750x560mm. Price: SOLD.
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Archipel Sauvage IV / Savage Island IV (Dupin 530). Original color etching and aquatint, 1970. 35 signed & numbered impressions on Arches with a Maeght watermark. Individual impressions are hand-wiped and show much variation. Image size: 585x908mm. Price: $33,200.
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Archipel Sauvage IV / Savage Island IV (Dupin 530). Original color etching and aquatint, 1970. 35 signed & numbered impressions on Arches with a Maeght watermark. Individual impressions are hand-wiped and show much variation. Image size: 585x908mm. Price: $33,200.
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Hommage à Joan Miró (Dupin 866). Original color aquatint and etching with carborundum, 1973. 275 signed impressions on Guarro printed by J. J. Torralba & published by Sala Gaspar Editeur, Barcelona, on the occasion of Miró's 80th birthday. Annotated "cordialment" by Miró. There were no numbered impressions of this piece, Miró's birthday gift to his friends. Image size: 685x493mm. Price: $16,500.
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Fissures IIa (Dupin 466, Cramer 130). Original color soft varnish-etching and aquatint, 1969.75 signed & numbered impressions plus 20 HC impressions. Ours is a printer's proof on BFK Rives. Published by Maeght, Paris; our impression comes from the widow of the printer, Robert Dutrou, one of Miró's favorite collaborators. Image size: 195x290mm. Price: $12,500.
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Le Miroir secret du feu et du froid / The secret mirror of fire and frost (Dupin 980). Original etching, aquatint, and carborundum, 1977. 60 signed and numbered impressions on Rives and printed in Paris by Fequet & Baudier; published by Gérald Cramer, Geneva. Published as an "Hommage á San Lazzaro," the central motif in this print comes from a 1938 linocut Miro executed for the deluxe art review, XXe Siecle (see Miro1930s), founded and edited by San Lazzaro. Image size: 305x232mm. Price: $15,000.
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Jeune fille aux papillons / Young woman with butterflies (M. 740). Original color lithograph, 1971. 75 signed & numbered impressions plus c.1500 unsigned impressions published in the deluxe art review Derriere le Miroir of which ours is one. This lithograph is singled out for special comment by Raymond Queneau in the preface to Miro Lithographe IV. One of Miró's most delightful lithographs. Image size: 380x280mm. Price: $1275.
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Jardin au claire de lune / Garden illuminated by moonlight (M. 896). Original color lithograph, 1973. 100 signed an numbered iimpressions on paper with large margins plus an edition of unsigned impressions of unknown size publshed in Hommage à Teriade, a catalogue accompanying an exhibit at the Grand Palais in Paris in 1973, of which this is one. Image size: 329x239mm. Price: $875.
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Spaightwood Galleries, Inc.
To purchase, call us at 1-800-809-3343 (508-529-2511 in Upton MA & vicinity) or send an email to sptwd@verizon.net. We accept AmericanExpress, DiscoverCard, MasterCard, and Visa.
Spaightwood Galleries is located at 120 Main St (aka Highway 140) in Upton MA at the corner of Main St and Maple Ave in a rehabilitated Unitarian Church. For directions and visiting information, please call. We are, of course, always available over the web and by telephone (see above for contact information). Click the following for links to past shows and artists. For a visual tour of the gallery, please click here. For information about Andy Weiner and Sonja Hansard-Weiner, please click here. For a list of special offers currently available, see Specials.
Visiting hours: Saturday and Sunday noon to six and other times by arrangement. Please call to confirm your visit. Browsers and guests are welcome.
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