
In Tate Britain
Prints and Drawings Room
View by appointment- Artist
- Joan Miró 1893–1983
- Medium
- Etching on paper
- Dimensions
- Image: 277 × 195 mm
- Collection
- Tate
- Acquisition
- Purchased 1986
- Reference
- P77138
Catalogue entry
Joan Miró 1893-1983
P77138 Constellations
1959
Etching 277 x 195 (10 5/8 x 7 5/8) on Vélin d'Arches paper 442 x 362 (17 3/4 x 14 1/4); plate-mark 277 x 195 (10 5/8 x 7 5/8); watermark ‘ARCHES'; printed at l'Atelier Lacourière- Frélaut, Paris and published by Pierre Matisse to accompany the book by André Breton entitled Constellations; artist's proof aside from the edition of 50
Inscribed ‘Epreuve d'artiste' below image b.l. and ‘Miró' below image b.r.
Purchased at Christie's (Grant-in-Aid) 1986
Lit: André Breton, ‘Joan Miró "Constellations"', in André Breton, Surrealism and Painting, trans. Simon Watson Taylor, Paris, 1972, pp.257-64; J. Dupin, Miró Engraver, I, Paris 1984, p.166, fig.270 (col.)
This etching was made in 1959 for a de-luxe
edition of reproductions of the ‘Constellations' series of gouaches made by Miró in 1940-41.
In his preface to this edition André Breton emphasised the historical significance of the ‘Constellations'. Made during the period between the declaration of war and the occupation of France, these works symbolised, he wrote, the triumphal ‘resistance' of art and the spirit of man in the face of the menace posed by the War. Exhibited by Miró's dealer Pierre Matisse in New York in 1945, they were the first new works from Europe to be seen in America following the ending of hostilities. As such, they had a special significance for those like Breton who had spent the War years as emigrés
in America. In Miró's works Breton found a sign that the traditions of free thought and artistic endeavour in Europe had survived and surmounted the disaster of the War. The exhibition of these works had been ‘a window opened wide on to all the flowering trees that the distant storm might have spared. Anyone who was present at the time will always remember the feeling that a gust of fresh air blew from these Constellations' (Breton 1972, p.264).
Hovering between whimsy and a sense of pain or fear, this image of a figure surrounded by stars was typical of the imagery of the ‘Constellations'. Three versions of this etching were pulled from the same plate: a green state of which this print is one example, a plain black state (repr. Dupin 1984, fig.269 in col.) and a black state with hand painted additions by the artist.
Published in:
The Tate Gallery 1984-86: Illustrated Catalogue of Acquisitions Including Supplement to Catalogue of Acquisitions 1982-84, Tate Gallery, London 1988, pp.419-20
Explore
- abstraction(9,882)
-
- from recognisable sources(4,512)
-
- figure(2,275)
- emotions and human qualities(5,351)
-
- fear(263)
You might like
-
Joan Miró Composition
1947 -
Joan Miró The Great Carnivore
1969 -
Joan Miró Women and Bird in the Moonlight
1949 -
Joan Miró Series II
1952 -
Joan Miró The Conductor
1976 -
Joan Miró The Matador
1969 -
Joan Miró Untitled
1964 -
Joan Miró A Star Caresses the Breast of a Negress (Painting Poem)
1938 -
Joan Miró Head of a Catalan Peasant
1925 -
Joan Miró Woman
1949 -
Joan Miró Message from a Friend
1964 -
Modestos Cuixart Untitled
1977 -
Joan Miró The Tightrope Walker
1970 -
Antoni Tapies The Sieve
1972 -
Julio González Architectural Figure No. 2
1940