Joan Miró. Últimas obras (pintura, escultura y grabado) en las colecciones del MNCARS

26 october, 1998 - 6 december, 1998 /
Museo de Almería Art Center
Joan Miró. Galathée, 1976. Graphic Art. Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía Collection, Madrid
Joan Miró. Galathée, 1976. Graphic Art. Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía Collection, Madrid

The Centro de Arte Museo in Almería inaugurates with this exhibition made of up a selection of pieces from Joan Miró’s (Barcelona, 1893 - Palma de Mallorca, 1983) last years.

The Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía will lend a collection of sixty-three paintings, sculptures and graphic works, dated between 1967 and 1981 to the exhibition. Over these fifteen years, Miró displays great strength and dynamism in the use of large formats. At the same time the artist retains traits from his previous productions, such as the characteristic use of red and blue tones and his iconographic repertoire, where women and celestial objects are protagonists. This is confirmed in the three paintings displayed in the exhibition Femme VI (1969), Femme (1972) and Personnage, oiseaux (1974).

This exhibition shows the various facets of Joan Miró’s production, tireless and innovative creator of artistic language and one of the most important Spanish artists of the twentieth century. The gestures of these works possess echos of Action Painting, a movement which Miró begins to adopt in 1947 when he makes his first trip to the United States. Bold and contrasting colours stand out at this late stage, while an assimilation of Informalism occurs in his painting, which leads him to incorporate into his technique stains, splutterings, burns, brush marks and hand prints.

Also included in the exhibition are some examples of the artist's sculptural work. A selection of ten sculptures such as Torse de femme (1967), Tête de taureau (1970) and Danseuse (1981) represent his interest in playing with space, which Miró implements from his first three-dimensional works in 1931. A wide range of his sculptural work was exhibited in 1986 in Miró esculptor, one of the first exhibitions of the then, Centro de Arte Reina Sofia.

In the second half of the Sixties, Miró begins to cast his works in bronze, starting with the object found and culminating with the definite material. However, the artist intervenes in the process by printing marks and prints on the pieces, which are part of the final appearance of the piece.

The largest collection of pieces in this exhibition is the artist's graphic works, a fundamental facet in the context of his production. His work as an engraver began in 1928 and continues throughout his career. The exhibited works display his mastery of various techniques. Included in the lithographs are Le délire du couturier (1969) which Miró produces in three colours: white, grey and yellow; Le journal (1972), a lithograph in colours; La folle au piment rageur (1975); La meneuse de lune (1975) and L’halterophile (1975), both over two metres high and Les Amoureux et Luna Park I (1981) from the Allegro vivace series. The etchings that stand out are Barbare dans la nuit (1976), L’aveugle parmi les oiseaux (1978), and three works from the Gaudí Series (1979).

Finally, there are three examples from the series Archipel sauvage from 1970 of his etching and aquatint techniques. From that same date and technique the collection Le souffre-douleur is exhibited.

Exhibition´s details

Organized by: 
Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía
Curatorship: 
Paloma Esteban
Artists: