
In Tate St Ives
- Artist
- Joan Miró 1893–1983
- Original title
- Femmes, oiseau au clair de lune
- Medium
- Oil paint on canvas
- Dimensions
- Support: 813 × 660 mm
frame: 1049 × 897 × 114 mm - Collection
- Tate
- Acquisition
- Purchased 1951
- Reference
- N06007
Display caption
This work belongs to a series of paintings that Miró made in 1949–50 in Majorca.
Miró’s use of simple shapes and bright colours constitutes a highly personal visual language, often charged with symbolic meaning. In this case, the women and bird of the title are easily identifiable under the moon and stars. This imagery suggests a harmonious and elemental relationship between man and nature, which the artist felt was threatened by modern civilisation.
Gallery label, August 2013
Does this text contain inaccurate information or language that you feel we should improve or change? We would like to hear from you.
Catalogue entry
Joan Miró born 1893 [ - 1983]
N06007 Femmes, Oiseau au Clair de Lune (Women and Bird in the Moonlight) 1949
Inscribed 'Miró | 10 | 1949' on back of canvas
Oil on canvas, 32 x 26 (81.5 x 66)
Purchased from the Galerie Maeght (Knapping Fund) 1951
Prov:
With Galerie Maeght, Paris (purchased from the artist 1951) Exh:
Braque, Chagall, Kandinsky, La Fresnaye, Matisse, Miró, Arp ..., Galerie Maeght, Paris, February-March 1951 (no catalogue); Joan Miró, Tate Gallery, August-October 1964 (188, repr.); Kunsthaus, Zurich, October-December 1964 (188, repr.); Joan Miró, Grand Palais, Paris, May-October 1974 (65, repr.); Louisiana Museum, Humlebaek, November 1974-January 1975 (29, repr. in colour)
Lit:
Jacques Dupin, Joan Miró: Life and Work (London 1962), No.730, pp.392-5, repr. p.555 as 'Painting. 1 June, 1949'
Repr: XXe
Siècle, No.1, 1951, p.32 as 'Femme et Oiseau au Clair de Lune'; Jacques Prévert and G. Ribemont-Dessaignes, Joan Miró (Paris 1956), p.167 as 'L'Etoile blanche' 1948; Roland Penrose, Miró
(London 1970), p.114 in colour
When asked whether the title used here was correct, the artist replied (letter of 17 June 1954): 'To the whole of this series of paintings, which was executed very slowly, I gave on completion a general title of "Paintings", but later, to be more precise and give a more objective and concrete meaning, I entitled your picture "Femmes, Oiseau au Clair de Lune".'
Jacques Dupin has pointed out that Miró's paintings of the period 1949-50 can be divided into two contrasting and complementary series: a series of very elaborate paintings noteworthy for the diversity and extraordinary refinement of their grounds (the present work is an example of this) and a further series of completely spontaneous paintings of a summary, gestural character. In the 'elaborate' paintings, he writes, 'Figures, birds, animals, stars, and signs play and combine with one another with an elegance and acrobatic sureness, a casualness in the revelation of mystery and a joy in their nostalgic evocation of a primitive world which together confound the imagination'.
Published in:
Ronald Alley, Catalogue of the Tate Gallery's Collection of Modern Art other than Works by British Artists, Tate Gallery and Sotheby Parke-Bernet, London 1981, pp.525-6, reproduced p.525
Explore
- abstraction(8,615)
-
- from recognisable sources(3,634)
- non-representational(6,161)
-
- colour(2,481)
- irregular forms(2,007)
You might like
-
Joan Miró The Great Carnivore
1969 -
Joan Miró The Conductor
1976 -
Joan Miró Series II
1952 -
Joan Miró Composition
1947 -
Joan Miró Constellations
1959 -
Claude Bellegarde Bird I
1957 -
Antoni Tapies Grey and Green Painting
1957 -
Joan Miró Painting
1927 -
Julio González Architectural Figure No. 2
1940 -
Salvador Dalí Mountain Lake
1938 -
Joan Miró Woman
1949 -
Joan Miró A Star Caresses the Breast of a Negress (Painting Poem)
1938 -
Joan Miró Message from a Friend
1964 -
Karel Appel People, Birds and Sun
1954 -
Joan Miró Head of a Catalan Peasant
1925