Personnage, oiseaux

In the 1976 work Personnage, oiseaux, Joan Miró continued to explore unusual supports and materials, which he had first done in the late 1920s and early 1930s with his collages, assemblages and object paintings, taking it to extremes in his desire to push back the boundaries of the pictorial space. The inclusion of work utensils in an artwork, in this case sandpaper, is a recurrent motif. In this case, he even comes to incorporate the brand logo of a star, using it as part of the composition.

When the back of the work is observed, another unexpected material can be seen: wooden battens from the windmill that stood next to the house at Son Abrines. The use of sandpaper and reclaimed wood was joined by literal examples of aggression, made with nails or cuts and tears in paper, tying in with his 1973 lacerated canvases.

© Joan Miró, “Personnage, oiseaux”, 1976, reverse

These works were created at a time when Miró’s work was becoming more gestural and immediate, with the abandonment of preliminary sketches and, instead, direct, brutal attacks on the painting. At the age of eighty, Miró felt freer than ever before.