Spaightwood Galleries

Joan Miró: Lithographs for Le Lézard aux Plumes d'Or (1971)

Miró 1930s / Miró 1930s_2 / Miró 1940s / Miró L'Antitete / Miró 1950-53 / Miró 1953-56 / Miró 1956: Prevert / Miró 1957-60
Miró 1961 / Miró 1963 / Miró 1963-65 / Miró Flux (1964) / Miro Ubu Roi / Miró 1966-69 /
Miró Sans le Soleil / Miró Sans le Soleil 2 / Miró Sans le Soleil 3
Miró 1970-73 / Miró Lezard (1971) / Miró Beasts (1972) / Miró Lithographs (1972) / Miro 1974-79 / Miró Lithographe 2 1975
Miró Lapidari 1981

Heroic Poetry: Brinkman / Frankenthaler / Mitchell / Motherwell / Nevelson / Tàpies

Le Lézard aux Plumes d'Or / The Lizard with Golden Feathers is a series of 13 color lithographs (plus a black and white lithograph pasted on the cover of the portfolio) illustrating a poem written by Miró. The prints were originally published in a portfolio in Paris by Louis Broder. The lithographs were printed at Mourlot in Paris in November 1971. The edition consisted of 195 portfolios, each of which was signed by Miró, with sets of the unsigned lithographs printed on Rives paper; the first twenty portfolios and 5 artist's proofs were accompanied by sets of the lithographs printed on parchment with large margins and signed by Miró; the first 50 portfolios (and 15 artist's proofs) also contained sets of the lithographs on Japan Kochi paper with large margins signed by Miró. The lithographs in these deluxe editions were also numbered: 1/20-20/20, I/X to X/X, e.a. 1/5-5/5 for the impressions on parchment and 1/50-50/50, I/X to X/X, and e.a. 1/10-10/10 for the impressions on Japan Kochi. With the exception of M. 790, the frontispiece, all of the impressions below come from one of the 195 signed portfolios with unsigned lithographs; we also have one of the 15 artists proofs with large margins for M. 790. See Patrick Cramer, Joan Miró: The Illustrated Books (Geneva, 1989), n. 148 and Miró Lithographe Vol. 4. The Lizard with Feathers of Gold ( Le Lézard aux Plumes d'Or) portrays Miro as a poet visualizing his verse via lithographic images.

Miró's interest in deluxe artist's books (or livre d'artiste) is perhaps another side of his making works in series, at which he was also quite active. The link, I think, is a search for a way of making a narrative without words, without a plot, without a verbal story line—in short a poetic narrative that will live or die solely in terms of its images.

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