Galeria Joan Prats, Barcelona

Gallery Kasahara, �෴�Osaka, Japan (acquired from the above in 1980)

Acquired from the above by the present owner

Saint-Paul-de-Vence, Fondation Maeght, Miró, 1968, no. hc 3 (liste🤪d in the addenda to the catalogue)

Barcelona, Antic Hospital de la Santa Creu, Miró, 1968, no. 7

Madrid, Museo Español de Arte Co🌱ntempor🍌áneo, 1978, no. 58

Palma de Majorca, Museo de Arte Moderno, Miró, 1980, no. 38

Charleroi, Palais des Beaux-Arts, Picasso-Miró-Dalí, 1985, no📖. 23, illustrated in color in the cat༒alogue

Jacques Dupin, Joan Miró, Catalogue raisonné. Paintings, vol. IV, Paris, 2002, no. 1167, illustrated in color pp. 132-33

Excellent condition. Original canvas. Under UV, there is no evidence of retouching. There are a few tiny specks of loss visible in the large blue square on the right. Otherwise, the paint layer is fresh and untouched.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

Miró's large, horizontal composition calls to mind the expanse of the starlit night sky over the artist's studio on the Mediterranean island of Mallorca.  When he painted this work in 1964, Miró was primarily concerned with reducing his pictorial language to its barest essentials.  "Through this rarefaction and seeming lack of prudence," explains his biographer Jacques Dupin, "the canvas' pictorial energy was in fact magnified, and his painting strikingly reaffirmed.  This process also seemed like a breath of fresh air, or an ecstatic present from which new signs, colors, and the full freedom of gesture surged forth.  By limiting  the colors of his palette, Miró's enduring themes yielded works of various sizes, proportions rhythms, and resonances" (J. Dupin, Miró, Barcelona, 1993, pp. 337-38).

The frenetic expressivenes of the artist's brushwork here calls to mind the works of Willem De Kooning completed around the same time.  After his trip to New York in 1947, Miró became acquainted with the art of the Abstract Expressionists and was fascinated by their new techniques and their aesthetic agenda. As the artist later recalled, the experience of seeing canvases of the Abstract Expressionists was like "a blow to the solar plexus." Several young painters, including Jackson Pollock, were crediting Miró as their inspiration for their wild, paint-splattered canvases. In the years that followed he created works that responded to the enthusiasm of this younger generation of American painters and the spontaneity of their art. It was also under their influence tha🃏t he started painting on a large scale, requiring the construction of a massive studio in Palma by the Catalan architect Josep Lluís Sert (fig. 2). The paintings he created from the early 1950s onwards are a fascinating response to these new trends of abstraction, while at the same time showing Miró's allegiance to his own artistic pursuits.

Jacques Dupin touches upon the artist's emphasis on abstract, graphic expression in his discussion of Miró's paintings from the early 1960s: "In some cases, the artist stressed the power, the brutality of a summary, rough graphism, born of a single gesture and closely related to graffiti.  In other cases, a few economical, light lines serve as counterpoint to the free play of splashes and spots of color.  Seemingly contradictory, both approaches reflect a mistrust of the sign, a desire to eliminated calculated, fixed forms from his vocabulary so as to gain in spontaneity, directness, and a purer revelation of the act of painting" (J. Dupin, Miró, New York, 2003, p. 303).

As was the case for most of these late works, the artist completed the picture in his studio in Palma de Mallorca, where the warm Mediterranean sunlight and invigorating꧃ sea air enlivened his desire to paint bold and exuberant oils.  This is one of a series of long, horitonzal pictures that Miró dedicated to his heirs.  Emilio Fernández Miró, who was the receipient of the present picture, was a child at the time this canvas was painted, as evidenced by the photo of the boy, along with Miró and Pablo Picasso in Mougins in 1968 (fig. 1).  According to the Catalan inscription on the reverse, 'Joan' gave this work to young 'Emili' in January of 1965.