Provenance

Galerie Maeght, Barcelona

Galerie Maeght

French, est. 1947

Explore selected works

As tall as the spindly trees behind it, a bronze, abstract, free-standing sculpture is made up of a circle set within a shallow box, which is balanced on the tip of an upside-down, thick-legged, V shape. The textured, lumpy legs taper as they move up. A sinewy rope-like texture runs, like a hem, along the outside of the pointed arch. Another form, like a lip, lines the inner edge where the legs pinch together at the top of the arch. The box balanced on the apex is nearly as wide as the legs. The box has a projecting rim, and is corrugated along the outer surfaces and the front edge, as if it had been cut down from a cardboard box. The circle centered in the box also has a projecting rim, like a tall cake pan. Within the circle, a shape like the wing of a bird appears to have been incised. A curving, bowtie-like shape protruding on a rod from the top of the box is incised with a dot at the center of another circle.
Joan Miró, Personnage Gothique, Oiseau-Eclair (Gothic Personage, Bird-Flash), model 1974, cast 1977, bronze, Gift of The Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation, 1992.53.1

Personnage Gothique, Oiseau-Eclair (Gothic Personage, Bird-Flash)

Joan Miró · model 1974, cast 1977 · bronze ·  Accession ID  1992.53.1

The abstracted form of a woman is made with blocks of cherry red, pine green, cobalt blue, black, and one canary yellow-shape on this vertical, woven tapestry. The ivory-white background of the tapestry is dotted and streaked with light and dark brown and black, and it’s fringed along the bottom. The colorful shapes roughly make up the form of a person with a headdress, arms, one foot, and perhaps a skirt. A grid of red, blue, and black blocks are also in the lower right corner. The weaving is not uniform, and ends hang down in many areas. The texture varies from fine, uniform stitches to scale-like sections. The artists’ names are woven into the tapestry near the middle of the right edge, “Miró” and “Royo.”
Josep Royo, Woman, 1977, wool and cotton tapestry, Gift of the Collectors Committee and George L. Erion, 1978.23.1

Woman

Josep Royo · 1977 · wool and cotton tapestry ·  Accession ID  1978.23.1

Bibliography

1998

  • Nahon, Pierre. Les marchands d'art en France: XIXe et XXe siècles. Paris, 1998: 187-195.