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Lot Essay
Executed on 20 June 1934 and measuring over a meter in height, Sans titre (Personnages) vividly conveys the free-flowing, poetic lyricism of Joan Miró’s work during the mid-1930s, as he continued to test his painterly skills on an array of unconventional grounds. While Miró later noted that Pablo Picasso had “le goût de l’instrument,” his own interests for experimentation, he admitted, lay in his supports and materials (quoted in C. Lanchner, Joan Miró, exh. cat., The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1993, p. 61). Throughout the summer and fall of 1934, he executed a suite of drawings and paintings on a wide variety of different papers, using everything from coarse sandpaper and corrugated packaging cardboard, to velvety velour paper and topographically detailed maps, to capture his visions. In Sans titre (Personnages), Miró employs a large sheet of specialist drawing paper by the renowned French manufacturers Canson & Montgolfier, leaving sections of the pale, ivory sheet visible among the sweepings strokes of gouache and oil paint, drawing attention to the fine texture of his support.
A trio of strange characters appear in supple, undulating black outlines, the strong strokes of paint accentuating the rhythm of their distorted and exaggerated forms as they move purposefully across the sheet. Passages of opaque color, in shades of white, scarlet red and black, lend these intriguing creatures a certain solidity and presence against the backdrop of delicately layered, semi-translucent washes of pigment that transition from deep burgundy in the lower left corner, through subtly variegated shades of rich brown. The forms of the characters in Sans titre (Personnages) and the nuanced color transitions appear to be closely related to the series of tapestry designs Miró was working on through the winter of 1933-1934 (Dupin, nos. 459-463). Rather than free-floating forms, however, the artist fills this scene with a powerful sense of tension and energy, as the trio appear to march forward in a group. Their angry expressions, denoted by a simple v-shape between their eyes, are accentuated by their aggressive posturing, seen in the enlarged, stomping foot of one character, the raised arm of another that appears to be holding a weapon, and the manner in which the third character bares his sharp red teeth and shouts at an unseen foe. In this way, Sans titre (Personnages) may reflect Miró’s anxiety at the increasing tensions and heightened polarization in Spanish politics and society at this time, which would erupt in the violent suppression of striking miners in Asturias in October 1934, and ultimately lead to the Spanish Civil War three years later.
Sans titre (Personnages) remained in Miró’s personal collection until 1960, when the artist donated the work to a special auction to benefit The Museum of Modern Art in New York. Staged in support of the museum’s 30th Anniversary Fund, an endowment for future purchases and the construction of a new wing at MoMA, this marked the first time in history an auction was live-broadcast via closed-circuit television to multiple locations, with specialized viewing rooms set up in Dallas, Chicago and Los Angeles allowing buyers across America the opportunity to follow along and bid in the sale. The dedicated auction featured works by Paul Cezanne, Georges Braque, Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Jean Dubuffet, Alberto Giacometti, and Arshile Gorky, among others, with each lot either donated by notable collectors, gallerists and benefactors, or by the artists themselves. As the catalogue for the sale noted, this marked the first opportunity for Miró’s Sans titre (Personnages) to be seen by the public: “In sending this gift, the artist stated that the painting is an unpublished work, never before shown or photographed, which he had been keeping for himself” (Fifty Modern Paintings and Sculptures, Especially Donated for the Benefit of the 30th Anniversary Fund of The Museum Of Modern Art, New York, New York, 1960, p. 68).
Sans titre (Personnages) was purchased from the auction by the esteemed collector and gallerist Emily McFadden Staempfli, whose interests in modern art had been sparked while studying at culinary school in Paris during her early twenties. She acquired a broad array of works over the years, by artists such as Niki de Saint Phalle, Paul Gauguin, René Magritte, Constantin Brancusi, and Marcel Duchamp, and in the summer of 1968 loaned 60 paintings from her collection to a special exhibition at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. It remained with McFadden Staempfli until 1974, when it was purchased by the late owners.
A trio of strange characters appear in supple, undulating black outlines, the strong strokes of paint accentuating the rhythm of their distorted and exaggerated forms as they move purposefully across the sheet. Passages of opaque color, in shades of white, scarlet red and black, lend these intriguing creatures a certain solidity and presence against the backdrop of delicately layered, semi-translucent washes of pigment that transition from deep burgundy in the lower left corner, through subtly variegated shades of rich brown. The forms of the characters in Sans titre (Personnages) and the nuanced color transitions appear to be closely related to the series of tapestry designs Miró was working on through the winter of 1933-1934 (Dupin, nos. 459-463). Rather than free-floating forms, however, the artist fills this scene with a powerful sense of tension and energy, as the trio appear to march forward in a group. Their angry expressions, denoted by a simple v-shape between their eyes, are accentuated by their aggressive posturing, seen in the enlarged, stomping foot of one character, the raised arm of another that appears to be holding a weapon, and the manner in which the third character bares his sharp red teeth and shouts at an unseen foe. In this way, Sans titre (Personnages) may reflect Miró’s anxiety at the increasing tensions and heightened polarization in Spanish politics and society at this time, which would erupt in the violent suppression of striking miners in Asturias in October 1934, and ultimately lead to the Spanish Civil War three years later.
Sans titre (Personnages) remained in Miró’s personal collection until 1960, when the artist donated the work to a special auction to benefit The Museum of Modern Art in New York. Staged in support of the museum’s 30th Anniversary Fund, an endowment for future purchases and the construction of a new wing at MoMA, this marked the first time in history an auction was live-broadcast via closed-circuit television to multiple locations, with specialized viewing rooms set up in Dallas, Chicago and Los Angeles allowing buyers across America the opportunity to follow along and bid in the sale. The dedicated auction featured works by Paul Cezanne, Georges Braque, Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Jean Dubuffet, Alberto Giacometti, and Arshile Gorky, among others, with each lot either donated by notable collectors, gallerists and benefactors, or by the artists themselves. As the catalogue for the sale noted, this marked the first opportunity for Miró’s Sans titre (Personnages) to be seen by the public: “In sending this gift, the artist stated that the painting is an unpublished work, never before shown or photographed, which he had been keeping for himself” (Fifty Modern Paintings and Sculptures, Especially Donated for the Benefit of the 30th Anniversary Fund of The Museum Of Modern Art, New York, New York, 1960, p. 68).
Sans titre (Personnages) was purchased from the auction by the esteemed collector and gallerist Emily McFadden Staempfli, whose interests in modern art had been sparked while studying at culinary school in Paris during her early twenties. She acquired a broad array of works over the years, by artists such as Niki de Saint Phalle, Paul Gauguin, René Magritte, Constantin Brancusi, and Marcel Duchamp, and in the summer of 1968 loaned 60 paintings from her collection to a special exhibition at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. It remained with McFadden Staempfli until 1974, when it was purchased by the late owners.