Pierre Matisse Gallery, New York
Acquavella Galleries, New York
Galerie Jacques de la Béraudière, Genève
Acquis auprès du précédent par le propriétaire actuel le 19 juin 2012

Yokohama, Yokohama Museum of Art, Joan Miró. Centennial Exhibition: The Pierre Matisse Collection, no. 10, reproduit p. 61

Jacques Dupin & Ariane Lelong-Mainaud, Joan Miró. Catalogue raisonné. Drawings 1901-1937, vol. I, Paris, 2008, no. 424, reproduit p. 206

Executed on cream wove paper, not laid down, sandwiched between glass and backing board. The edges are deckled. There is an artist's pinhole at each corner and four further pinholes towards centre of upper edge. The sheet is slightly time-stained. There are two very small repaired tears (approx. 3mm long) along the right part of the lower edge. The sheet is slightly undulating, largely due to the application of medium. This work is in very good condition.
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signed 'Joan Miró' and dated '20/3/34' (on the reverse); pastel and Indian ink on paper. Executed on March 20, 1934.

1934 est une année particulièrement importante pour Miró. Le 25 mars, soit 5 jours après la réalisation de l’œuvre où les silhouettes d’un homme et d’une femme à l’encre de Chine s’enlèvent sur une poudre de pastel rose, Miró écrit à Pierre Loeb. Cette lettre où est abordée la délicate question de la négociation de son contrat avec Pierre Matisse entérine des relations nées en 1933, à l’occasion d’une exposition monographique organisée par Pierre Loeb (à qui Miro demande de rester son "marchand officiel") chez Bernheim-Jeune, exposition que Pierre Matisse fait venir à New York à la fin de l’année.

Datée du 20 mars 1934, l’œuvre se situe à la croisée de multiples expositions de groupe à Paris (dont L’Exposition surréaliste de 1933), en Europe (notamment au Kunsthaus de Zürich à l’automne 1934) et aux Etats-Unis. A cette époque, son ami Michel Leiris (qui travaille avec Zervos au numéro des Cahiers d’Art qui lui sera con𝓰sacré et paraitra en juin 1934) revient de la Mission Dakar-Djibouti ; à Paris, c’est chez Calder qu’i🥀l habite.

Dans l’œuvre de Miró, c’est entre les dessins-collages de l’été 1933 (qui about♐iront aux peintures-collages de 1934) et les grands pastels de l’ét🐈é 1934 (premières manifestations de ce que l’artiste appellera sa "peinture sauvage", contemporaine de la montée de l’angoisse et du fascisme) que l’œuvre se situe. Elle est de ces œuvres sur papier particulièrement achevées et riches où l’on suit aisément l’évolution de Miró qui "après avoir choisi des objets familiers comme thèmes à ses variations, les a peu à peu réduits au rôle de signes plastiques dont son imagination de peintre dirigera seule les ébats colorés" (Maurice Raynal, 17 mai 1934).

 

1934 was a particularly important year for Miró. The 25^th of March, 5 days after the completion of the present work in which the silhouettes of a man and a woman in Indian ink rise out of a powder of pink pastel, Miró wrote to Pierre Loeb. This letter, in which he addresses the difficult question of the negotiation of a contract with Pierre Matisse, confirms a friendship begun in 1933, on the o꧟ccasion of the solo show organized by Pierre Loeb (whom Miró asks to remain his “official dealer”) at the Bernheim-Jeune Gallery, exhibition that Pierre Matisse  then opened in New York at the end of th📖e year.

Dated March 20^th 1934, the painting was created at the intersection of several group exhibitions in Paris (including the Surrealist Exhibition of 1933), in Europe (notably at the Kunsthaus in Zurich in the autumn of 1934) and in the United States. At this time, his friend Michel Leiris (who worked with Zervos on the issue of Cahiers d’Art dedicated to Miro and published in June 193ℱ4) returne🌟d to Paris from the Dakar-Djibouti mission and move into Calder’s studio.

In Miró’s work, this painting is situated between the drawing-collages of the summer of 1933 (which will result in the painting-collages of 1934) and the large pastels of the summer of 1934 (the first depictions of what the artist was to name his “wild painting”, contemporary to the rise of anxiety about Fascism). It is one of his particularly accomplished and rich works on paper where Miro’s development can easily be seen as an artist  who “has chosen familiar objects as a theme to his variations, gradually reduced them to the role of plastic signs whose painter’s imagination alone was to direct in coloure♎d movement” (Maurice Raynal, May 17th 1934).