Maquette for "Miró's Chicago"

Joan MiróWW-1963-029599

1963·Plaster·132.1 × 28 × 25.4 cm (52 × 11 × 10 in.)

By 1963, architect Bruce Graham of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill developed designs for the Brunswick Building (now the Cook Country Administrative Building), including a monumental work for the plaza just west of the structure. He commissioned Joan Miró, known for his abstract paintings and sculptures composed of biomorphic shapes, to produce a monument that would complement Pablo Picasso's planned sculpture for the new civic center (now Richard J. Daley Center) across the street. After visiting Chicago to survey the site and designs for the building, Miró made this plaster maquette as a proposal. The commission was delayed, however, for nearly two decades, until 1980, when Mayor Jane Byrne launched new efforts to realize Miró's design: a 40-foot-tall female figure with outstretched arms made of bronze, ceramic tiles, and cement. Miró's Chicago was completed and dedicated on the artist's 88th birthday, April 20, 1981.

Catalogue

Year: 1963
Medium: Plaster
Dimensions: 132.1 × 28 × 25.4 cm (52 × 11 × 10 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

Full artist profile →