Painting

Joan MiróWW-1936-029618

1936·Oil, gravel, pebbles, and sand on Masonite·77.6 × 107.2 cm (30 9/16 × 42 3/16 in.)

<p>In 1927, in the spirit of modernist challenges to authority and convention, Joan Miró declared his intent to “assassinate painting” and upend its traditional hierarchies of materials and subject matter. <em>Painting</em> demonstrates Miró’s ongoing search for new artistic materials, including gravel and sand mixed into oil paint, which he applied to Masonite, a rugged support he favored over traditional canvas. Fascinated by the effect of such rough substances, the artist told his dealer not to worry if any materials came loose when the work was exhibited overseas, since it would “make the surface . . . look like an old crumbling wall, which will give great force to the formal expression.”</p>

Catalogue

Year: 1936
Medium: Oil, gravel, pebbles, and sand on Masonite
Dimensions: 77.6 × 107.2 cm (30 9/16 × 42 3/16 in.)
Collection: Art Institute of Chicago
Artist: Joan Miró

Artist

Joan Miró

Painting

Joan Miró i Ferrà was a Catalan painter, sculptor and ceramist from Spain. A museum dedicated to his work, the Fundació Joan Miró, was established in his native city of Barcelona in 1975, and another, the Fundació Pilar i Joan Miró, was established in his adoptive city of Palma, Mallorca in 1981. Earning international acclaim, his work has been interpreted as Surrealism but with a personal style, sometimes also veering into Fauvism and Expressionism. He was notable for his interest in the unconscious or the subconscious mind, reflected in his re-creation of the childlike. His difficult-to-classify works also had a manifestation of Catalan pride. In numerous interviews dating from the 1930s onwards, Miró expressed contempt for conventional painting methods as a way of supporting bourgeois society, and declared an "assassination of painting" in favour of upsetting the visual elements of established painting.

Palma de Mallorca, Spain

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