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Lot 3259* - A183 Impressionist & Modern Art - Friday, 08. December 2017, 04.00 PM

JOAN MIRÓ

(Montroig 1893 - 1983 Mallorca)
Femme aux 3 cheveux, constellation. 26 July 1976.
Oil on canvas.
Signed lower right: Miró, as well as signed, titled and inscribed and with the estate stamp on the reverse.
27 x 19 cm.

Provenance: Private collection, Spain, bought there by the present owner.

Literature: Dupin, Jacques/Lelong-Mainaud, Ariane: Joan Miró, Catalogue Raisonné, Paintings, vol. VI: 1976-1981, Paris 2004, p. 84, no. 1809 (with ill.).

In 1976 the first exhibition of the Joan Miró Foundation took place in Barcelona. It presented a large selection of Miró's works held in the museum on permanent loan. Miró himself was heavily involved in the planning of the exhibition. Nevertheless, he found time and energy to dedicate himself to painting at the same time. The present work "Femme aux 3 cheveux, constellation" is from July of that year and reveals the bold aesthetic that dominates the paintings from that festive moment in his career.
Previously focusing on rather large-format surfaces, Miró concentrated almost exclusively on medium and small canvases from the mid-1970s onwards. The later works are most notably distinguished by the artist's use of colour. The characteristic feature is the pronounced use of black, while the colours red, blue, yellow and green proportionately cover only small areas of the canvas.

At the same time, certain sequences from the 1960s and 1970s revisited his painting from the 1925s and 1930s in which he dealt with Surrealism and explored his interest in symbolic language, which would ultimately extend through his entire artistic practice. In the 1930s, Miró found himself in a crisis between fantasy and imagination on the one hand, and visible reality on the other. In the subsequent years, he continually sought a balance between figuration and abstraction and even though he always remained faithful to his symbolic vocabulary, figuratively recognisable forms increasingly appeared in the background.

The painting offered here was created within the course of a series of works in which Miró painted the same motif in diverse variations, always with the same title. The dominant black and the small, but striking splash of blue colour, as well as the figuratively coined title and the abstract execution thereof, comply with the period of its creation.

The silent humour that accompanies Miró's art is also found in our work. The small face in the lower left corner and the "3 cheveux" bring a smile to the viewer's face – a reminder of why one simply must love the artist Miró.


CHF 200 000 / 250 000 | (€ 206 190 / 257 730)

Sold for CHF 240 500 (including buyer’s premium)
All information is subject to change.