Gilden's Art Gallery
Joan Miró: Devotion to Printmaking
Joan Miró: Devotion to Printmaking
Joan Miró
Joan Miró is renowned as one of the greatest Spanish artists of the 20th Century and he was particularly passionate about printmaking, pursuing the artistic process to the end of his days.
We have selected several etchings and aquatints from the modern master alongside powerful lithographs and an example of hand colouring to heighten the printed medium. They represent works across several decades of printmaking.
From the 1940s through to the 1980s, Miró collaborated with some of the finest and most respected print making studios in France and Spain.
These include the Parisian ateliers of Fernand Mourlot and Aime Maeght as well as J. J. Toralba and Poligrafa Obra Grafica in Barcelona.
Of particular note is the use of carborundum, which is a defining feature of Miró’s work in intaglio from the 1960s onward, where he initially encountered the technique working alongside Robert Dutrou.
Joan Miró’s ceaseless pursuit of printmaking inspired a second wave of Spanish artists to explore this malleable medium."
Image Credit:
Joan Miró, Mark on the Wall, 1967
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© Herbert List/Magnum Photos
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Joan Miró, Saturnalian Insects, 1975
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Joan Mirò, Mark on the Wall, 1967
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Joan Miró
Composition XIII, from: Barcelona
1972/73
Paper size: 170 x 70 cm. / 67 x 27.6 in.
Technique: Original Hand Signed and Numbered
Etching and Aquatint in Colours with Carborundum
on Guarro Wove Paper
$35000
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Joan Miró
Saturnalian Insects
1975
Paper size: 92 x 63.5 cm. / 36.2 x 25 in.
Technique: Original Hand Signed and Numbered Etching and Aquatint in Colours on Arches Wove Paper
$13000
Joan Miró
Composition I, from: Gaudì
1979
Paper size: 75.9 x 44.5 cm / 29.9 x 17.5 in.
Technique: Original Hand Signed and Numbered
Etching and Aquatint in Colours on Arches Wove Paper
$19000
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Joan Miró was born in Barcelona in 1893, but the emotional landscapes that shaped him as a person and an artist were principally those of Mont-roig, Paris, and Majorca, and later those of New York and Japan. The small town of Mont-roig in the Baix Camp region of Catalonia was a counterpoint to the intellectual ferment of his life with the surrealist poets in 1920s Paris, and to the stimulus of discovering Abstract Expressionism in New York in the forties. Some time later, in the midst of World War II, Joan Miró returned from exile in France and settled in Palma de Mallorca, which became his refuge and workplace and where his friend Josep Lluís Sert designed the studio of his dreams.
Miró’s attachment to the landscape of Mont-roig first and then Majorca was crucial in his work. His connection to the land and his interest in everyday objects and in the natural environment formed the backdrop to some of his technical and formal research. Miró avoided academicism in his constant quest for a pure, global art that could not be classified under any specific movement. Self-contained in his manners and public expressions, it is through art that Joan Miró showed his rebelliousness and a strong sensitivity to the political and social events around him. These conflicting forces led him to create a unique and extremely personal language that makes him one of the most influential artists of the 20th century.
Gilden's Art Gallery
can be reached at:
020 7435 3340
74 Heath Street, Hampstead NW3 1DN