Barcelone

Miró began experimenting with printmaking in the 1930s, honing his skills alongside the leading printing ateliers of the time. In 1973, when he was at the height of mastery in the medium, he completed Barcelone: a series of thirteen color engravings in etching, aquatint and carborundum. According to Jacques Dupin, the present work was likely a maquette for the cover of one of the portfolios that enclosed the prints.
A creature from the artist’s imaginary world takes up the majority of the large-scale sheet: on two bent legs, the third leg extended out, with a boney spiral-shaped tail, it stares straight out with crimson red eyes and a green aperture in place of a mouth. The background is filled with schematic stars, a lapis lazuli blue crescent-moon, mango-yellow and brown orbs and other symbols from Miró’s visual vocabulary, all giving the scene a cosmic appearance.
The strong black ink brushwork in the composition is a reference to Miró’s lifelong admiration of Japanese calligraphy, an influence the artist cited for pushing his work to be more gestural. Primary and secondary colors enliven the sheet, reflecting the pared back palette he had used since the 1940s.
Miró inscribed and gifted the present work to his friend Juan José Torralba, who printed the portfolio for the Spanish publisher Sala Gaspar. It has been in the collection of Arnold and Joan M. Saltzman for two decades.