Joan Miró
Face
Artwork Brief Description
Miró’s *Face* is a small, abstract portrait rendered in terracotta with bold black ink. The work’s primitive, cave-painting aesthetic reflects Miró’s fascination with early human mark-making. Despite its simplicity, the animated face invites curiosity, and its placement beside Erwin Novak’s work establishes a playful dialogue between the two artists. Miró’s lifelong experimentation with ceramics and unconventional materials is evident in this piece, which celebrates the spontaneity of creation.
Joan Miró i Ferrà was a Spanish painter, sculptor and ceramist, exponent of Surrealism, born on 20 April 1893 in Barcelona and died on 25 December 1983 in Palma de Mallorca.
He started drawing as a child and, although he began commercial studies, he took private drawing lessons, consolidating his artistic vocation. In 1912 he attended the Galí Academy and rented a studio in 1916, entering the art world and discovering Fauvism. Settling in Paris in 1920, he was influenced by Dadaism and later by the abstraction of Surrealism.
Returning to Spain during World War II, he settled in Majorca, where he won numerous awards and honours, including the Medalla d'Or de la Generalitat de Catalunya and the Gold Medal of Fine Arts.
He travelled extensively, exhibiting his works internationally, and created the Fundació Joan Miró in Barcelona
His most important works include sculptures, ceramics, and famous paintings such as the series ‘The Hope of the Condemned Man’.
Joan Miró engaged in artistic innovations, such as paintings on glass and monumental ceramics, and created the official poster for the 1982 World Cup.
Finally, he died at the age of 90 and was buried in Barcelona.
Joan Miró (Spanish 1893- 1983) Face
Miró’s small abstracted portrait sits atop a rather brutal concrete base, perfectly positioned so the head seemingly emerges from the ground. The terracotta tile stands out against the black ink, and the two-tone palette recalls early cave paintings and primitive art that were of great inspiration to Miró, whose oeuvre is full of symbolic meaning. Whilst it is unclear who or what we are looking at, this animated portrait is both beguiling and intriguing.
“The painting must be fertile. It has to give birth to a world. It doesn’t matter if you see flowers in it, figures, horses, as long as it reveals a world, something living.”
- Joan Miró
Its distinctive fish-like eyes appear to look up to the viewer whilst also looking slightly to the side towards its neighbouring sculpture by Erwin Novak. The placement of these two sculptures in such close proximity is by no means an accident. Nowak visited the garden on many occasions, and when he finished the sculpture, Heller decided that a Miró would be the perfect accompaniment. As we approach both works, we see a playful relationship between the two, with the simplicity of Miró’s head against Novak’s intricately painted figure.
Both Miró and Nowak had surrealist ideas and periods, however neither artist was confined to one particular period or group. Miró experimented continually throughout his career and always strived to be free from any labels. Whilst he did exhibit with the surrealists throughout the later 1920s, he often tried to work with unconventional materials, such as murals, ceramics, and found objects, without relying on traditional canvas or paper.
He called this practice “assassinating painting,” as in his eyes he was undoing the conventions of the medium and the bourgeois values for which it had come to stand. Throughout the 1930s, he produced small-scale sculptural objects such as this, even making collages, and works on paper, some of which were made in unconventional ways.
Miró’s interest in ceramics began in 1912 when he formed a significant friendship with the ceramicist Josep Lloréns Artigas whilst they were both art students in Barcelona. They remained friends, and it wasn’t until 1944 that they finally started working on collaborative projects together. Often, Miró would paint on Artigas’s vase or plaques, combining his mark-making with the pre-existing forms. Eventually, Miró began to produce sculpture in the medium, making models out of found objects and natural materials that would then be translated into clay by Artigas or, beginning in 1953, by Artigas’s son Joan.
Miró and Artigas travelled together to Santillana del Mar to look at the famous Altamira cave paintings, which Miró described as ‘the world’s earliest mural art’. From there, they travelled on to the ‘Collegiata’, the old Romanesque church at Santillana, where they admired the material texture of the ancient church wall. Finally, they visited Barcelona, where they examined the work of Catalan Romanesque artists and took in Antonio Gaudi’s Guell Park, which Miró acknowledged as an ongoing influence.