Joan Miro (A Museum of Modern Art Book) - Hardcover

Lanchner, Carolyn

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0810961237 ISBN 13: 9780810961234

Publisher: Museum of Modern Art, 1993

Synopsis

Offers color reproductions of over 250 of Miro's pieces, and includes commentaries on his works, based on writings of Miro's contemporaries

About this title

From Booklist:

The current Joan Mir{¢}o retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art rivals last year's Matisse show for excitement and revelation. Once again, the museum has inspired fresh appreciation for the work of a modern master. This volume, published in conjunction with the exhibition, is a masterpiece in its own right, with splendid color reproductions of more than 250 paintings, drawings, collages, and sculptures. Lanchner's shrewd commentary draws upon a wealth of sources, including letters, notebooks, the writings of Mir{¢}o's contemporaries, and numerous working drawings, and culminates in a lucid reexamination of Mir{¢}o's lifework by emphasizing the logistics of his creative processes, particularly his penchant for working in series. Mir{¢}o was disciplined, systematic, and prolific. He possessed a remarkable facility for materials and surface, but his craftsmanlike approach never kept him from expressing his unique and joyful lyricism. As Mir{¢}o moved from representative paintings into the free associations of abstraction, his work retained a marvelous sense of animation and vitality. His palette is lush and mysterious, his doodley lines both electric and graceful. One of the highlights of this retrospective is the beautifully poetic Constellation series (1940-41), in which highly symbolic birds, women, eyes, stars, and spirals float across radiant, otherworldly skies. An illustrated chronology and a complete catalog follow the plates. Donna Seaman

From Library Journal:

The genius of the Catalan painter/sculptor Joan Miro was best demonstrated by the sustained intensity of his remarkably imaginative vision, which endured for much of this century. This book, the catalog of a recent retrospective at New York's Museum of Modern Art, offers a good venue for discovering-or rediscovering-Miro's unique and often lyrical Surrealist style. Some 230 pages of luminous colorplates are unquestionably the highlight of the volume, testifying to both the immensity of the exhibition and the lavish production values of its catalog. This section is found, however, only after wading through a lengthy, arcane, and largely unreadable biocritical essay by Lanchner, MoMA's curator of painting and sculpture. Because of the variety and sheer volume of work, there is a great deal to like and dislike in Miro's oeuvre. Nevertheless, even those who are disdainful of his unremittingly rounded, wavy shapes will grant that his is a cohesive body of work, parts of which form the early breezes of the hurricane that was to hit the "New York School" of abstract art in the late Forties and early Fifties. Recommended for larger art collections. [For another view of Miro, see Jacques Dupin's Miro, reviewed above.]-Douglas F. Smith, Oakland P.L., Cal.
--Douglas F. Smith, Oakland P.L., Cal.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Museum of Modern Art
• Publication date: 1993
• ISBN 10: 0810961237
• ISBN 13: 9780810961234
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 484