Barcelone IX (M. 14)

Description

Barcelone IX (M. 14), 1944 by Joan Miro is an original Lithograph from the Barcelona Series. This print is signed and dated in the lower right and numbered in the lower left from the edition of 5. Mourlot 14.

Joan Miro began working in the graphic print mediums thanks to friendships with the circle of poets and writers that he met in Paris by means of Andre Masson. Miro was asked to create various illustrations for their avant-garde illustrated books. The mediums of etching and lithography facilitated, to Miro’s delight, a greater distribution of his artwork, reaching a wider audience. During those years, Joan Miro created thousands of prints and over a hundred illustrated books.

Between 1948 and 1949 Joan Miro made frequent visits to Paris to work on printing lithographs, etchings, and aquatints at the Atelier Mourlot (lithographs), and at the Atelier Lacouriere (engravings). Joan Miro developed a close relationship with the printer Fernand Mourlot that resulted in the production of over one thousand different lithographic editions. Joan Miro attained an excellent technical mastery of printmaking techniques, particularly in the use of carborundum to create relief on the etching plate.

Miro’s first major museum retrospective was held at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, in 1941. Joan Miro received the Grand Prize for Graphic Work at the Venice Biennale in 1954, and in 1958 Joan Miro was given a Guggenheim International Award for murals for the UNESCO building in Paris. In 1956 Miro moved into the villa of his dreams, located in Palma de Majorca. The new home was built in an ultra-modern style typical for the avant-garde architecture of the fifties. In 1992 it was transformed into the Joan Miro Museum open to the public. Joan Miro died on December 25, 1983 in Palma de Mallorca, Spain.

“For me a form is never something abstract; it is always a sign of something. It is always a man, a bird, or something else. For me painting is never a form for form’s sake.” – Joan Miro