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拍品專文
At the beginning of his career, Surrealist painter Joan Miró was best known for his abstract compositions on canvas and paper. Though he began to experiment with three-dimensional works as early as the 1920s, this did not become a significant part of his practice until after World War II.
By the late 1960s, Miró almost exclusively pursued monumental sculpture in a range of media, including painted bronze. In the words of Roland Penrose, the latter media represented "the literal fusion of sculpture and painting" which "allows Miró to use the primary colors which are significant in his painting and to gain three-dimensional effects in which paint is no longer an illusory medium, evoking depth on a flat surface but part of a solid object" (Miró, New York, 1970, p. 14). Projet pour un monument represents one of these large-scale, hybrid painting-sculptures.
The present bronze, measuring more than 50 inches tall, represents a larger-than-life candle stick and holder, painted in hues of sunny yellow, grass green, blood red and deep black. Despite having been cast in the durable medium of bronze, the candle betrays evidence of having been lit and slightly melted; the wick is frayed and bent, while 'wax' appears to have coagulated at the top and base of the candle. Of course, bronze itself must also be melted, poured into a mold, and cooled before achieving its final form. Miró's work plays with that material tension between the soft, pliable candle wax depicted and the hard cast bronze used to recreate it. In this sense, Miró's clever Surrealist sculpture prefigures the monumental stainless steel Balloon Dogs or the polychromatic aluminum mounds of Play-Doh by the contemporary artist Jeff Koons.
Like Koons, Miró's work is brightly-colored and playful, yet fundamentally grounded in the real world, often referencing inexpensive, everyday objects. Earlier in his career, Miró's project assemblages—sculptures that were composed of found objects, both natural and manmade—evoked the Duchampian legacy of the ready-made sculpture. Later, Miró reproduced them in bronze or ceramic, as in the present work. As the artist once stated, "If I frequently integrate the objects as they are, with raw materials, it is not to obtain a plastic effect but by necessity...I need to walk on my earth, to live among my own, because everything that is popular is necessary for my work” (quoted in W. Jeffett, The Shape of Color: Joan Miró’s Painted Sculpture, exh. cat., Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 2002, p. 21).
The present sculpture was acquired by Norman and Lyn Lear in 1982. With award winning shows like All in the Family and The Jeffersons, Norman redefined American television, holding up a mirror to American society and tackling social issues that many others shied away from. During his 101 years, Norman developed a voracious and compassionate curiosity and, together with his wife Lyn, the couple built a collection which reflected not only the vibrant creative community of California of which they were a pivotal part, but also the wider values which they espoused.
By the late 1960s, Miró almost exclusively pursued monumental sculpture in a range of media, including painted bronze. In the words of Roland Penrose, the latter media represented "the literal fusion of sculpture and painting" which "allows Miró to use the primary colors which are significant in his painting and to gain three-dimensional effects in which paint is no longer an illusory medium, evoking depth on a flat surface but part of a solid object" (Miró, New York, 1970, p. 14). Projet pour un monument represents one of these large-scale, hybrid painting-sculptures.
The present bronze, measuring more than 50 inches tall, represents a larger-than-life candle stick and holder, painted in hues of sunny yellow, grass green, blood red and deep black. Despite having been cast in the durable medium of bronze, the candle betrays evidence of having been lit and slightly melted; the wick is frayed and bent, while 'wax' appears to have coagulated at the top and base of the candle. Of course, bronze itself must also be melted, poured into a mold, and cooled before achieving its final form. Miró's work plays with that material tension between the soft, pliable candle wax depicted and the hard cast bronze used to recreate it. In this sense, Miró's clever Surrealist sculpture prefigures the monumental stainless steel Balloon Dogs or the polychromatic aluminum mounds of Play-Doh by the contemporary artist Jeff Koons.
Like Koons, Miró's work is brightly-colored and playful, yet fundamentally grounded in the real world, often referencing inexpensive, everyday objects. Earlier in his career, Miró's project assemblages—sculptures that were composed of found objects, both natural and manmade—evoked the Duchampian legacy of the ready-made sculpture. Later, Miró reproduced them in bronze or ceramic, as in the present work. As the artist once stated, "If I frequently integrate the objects as they are, with raw materials, it is not to obtain a plastic effect but by necessity...I need to walk on my earth, to live among my own, because everything that is popular is necessary for my work” (quoted in W. Jeffett, The Shape of Color: Joan Miró’s Painted Sculpture, exh. cat., Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 2002, p. 21).
The present sculpture was acquired by Norman and Lyn Lear in 1982. With award winning shows like All in the Family and The Jeffersons, Norman redefined American television, holding up a mirror to American society and tackling social issues that many others shied away from. During his 101 years, Norman developed a voracious and compassionate curiosity and, together with his wife Lyn, the couple built a collection which reflected not only the vibrant creative community of California of which they were a pivotal part, but also the wider values which they espoused.