Artwork of the 80's
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Artists & Works
Joan Miro
Spanish (1893-1984)
HOMAGE TO JOAN PRATS (1971)
lithograph series
22” x 30” to 29” x 39”

STYLE: SURREALISM,
70s PRINTMAKING

  

Born in Barcelona, Joan Miro studied there as well, his art training interupted briefly by an abortive career as a businessman. In 1920, Miro made his first trip to Paris where he met Picasso; in 1923, he joined the Surrealist group. Miro created his own Surrealistic language, using elements of Cubism as well as attempting to tap into unconscious sources of creativity, but never losing touch with the real world. One of the best-known and loved artists of the Modernish era, Miro has had major retrospectives at the Museum of Modern Art and the Guggenheim; there is a Miro Foundation in Barcelona.

Miro started his experiments in lithography in 1929, and made prints throughout his career, as well as paintings, sculpture, collages, and ceramics. Joan Prats was an art dealer in Barcelona and great friend and patron of Miro.Prats was instrumental in helping Miro publish some of his most significant printmaking projects, including collaborations with poets, such as Joan Brossa, another close friend.

CRITICAL EXCERPTS

Robert Lubar, Art in America, 9/94
" This emphasis on Miro's formal purity in American art criticism has, however, eclipsed the more anarchic and rebellious aspects of his artistic personality. In a 1931 interview, Miro insisted: ‘The only thing that's clear to me is that I intend to destroy, destroy everything that exists in painting. I have an utter contempt for painting. The only thing that interests me is the spirit itself, and I only use the customary artist's tools--brushes, canvas, paints--in order to get the best results." This was not a gratuitous remark, occasioned by Miro's then-recent work in collage and his experimentation with object-sculptures. For Miro reacted against esthetic purity as an end in itself throughout his long career. His art is as much a matter of anti-painting--a kind of anti-style and challenge to painting--as it demonstrates, in Sweeney's words, a "fundamental devotion to painting.’ What is more, the language Miro repeatedly invoked to describe his work--aggression, violence, terror, revolt and assassination--indicates that there was a social and moral project at the core of his art: Miro's challenge to pure form was from the start an act of protest against the reified consciousness of bourgeois society."

Louise Bourgeouise, Artforum,1/94
“Miro was a true naive, trusting, unable to take two steps without his supporting family. When I knew him he always replied to every question, ‘I'll have to ask Pilar,’ his wife. His large brown eyes were innocent and serene. He was a truly naive person in the best sense of the word: someone who could not grow up. He was what he was and did not pretend or want to be anybody else. He believed in himself, and that is a great compliment. He really accepted himself. In the true naive there is no discrepancy between the person and the work. Miro was his work."