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Lot Essay
A photo-certificate from Jacques Dupin dated Paris, 2 April 1999 accompanies this drawing.
Having fled France in June, 1940 to escape the advance of invading German armies, Mir arrived in Palma Mallorca in July and stayed with his wife's family. In 1943, once it seemed safe to return to mainland Spain (Mir had sympathized with the Loyalist cause during the Spanish Civil War), Mir resettled in Barcelona. He set up a large studio at 4, Passage del Credit, the house in which he had been born. In 1942-1943 Mir executed many works, all on paper, and most of them variations on a single theme, the symbolic relationship between a man or woman, bird and stars.
The human figures stand for an earthly presence, sometimes with tragic connotations, or more frequently with comic foibles, "as they clown around, run their foolish errands, play their whimsical or mysterious games" (J. Dupin, Miro, New York, 1962, p. 369). The personage in this composition appears to be male. A woman's figure, identifiable by her breasts and nipples, intersects with the forehead of the man, as if to insinuate herself as an object of desire in his mind. The asterisk-like stars, which surround the head, represent the spiritual and cosmic dimensions of existence. The bird-like figure which stands in the distance is an angel-like intermediary between the heavenly and the mundane.
During the war years Mir created works on paper only. By exploring and improvising with the many combinable media that can be applied to a paper surface, the artist arrived at his definitive, mature style, which for the remainder of his career would be an active dialogue between painting and drawing, color and line. He resumed painting in oils in 1944 and carried forth many of the ideas and much of the imagery that had preoccupied him during the previous four years.
Having fled France in June, 1940 to escape the advance of invading German armies, Mir arrived in Palma Mallorca in July and stayed with his wife's family. In 1943, once it seemed safe to return to mainland Spain (Mir had sympathized with the Loyalist cause during the Spanish Civil War), Mir resettled in Barcelona. He set up a large studio at 4, Passage del Credit, the house in which he had been born. In 1942-1943 Mir executed many works, all on paper, and most of them variations on a single theme, the symbolic relationship between a man or woman, bird and stars.
The human figures stand for an earthly presence, sometimes with tragic connotations, or more frequently with comic foibles, "as they clown around, run their foolish errands, play their whimsical or mysterious games" (J. Dupin, Miro, New York, 1962, p. 369). The personage in this composition appears to be male. A woman's figure, identifiable by her breasts and nipples, intersects with the forehead of the man, as if to insinuate herself as an object of desire in his mind. The asterisk-like stars, which surround the head, represent the spiritual and cosmic dimensions of existence. The bird-like figure which stands in the distance is an angel-like intermediary between the heavenly and the mundane.
During the war years Mir created works on paper only. By exploring and improvising with the many combinable media that can be applied to a paper surface, the artist arrived at his definitive, mature style, which for the remainder of his career would be an active dialogue between painting and drawing, color and line. He resumed painting in oils in 1944 and carried forth many of the ideas and much of the imagery that had preoccupied him during the previous four years.