Peinture (Painting)

Joan Miró

1933

On View in Gertrude Bernoudy Gallery, Room 3

The Spanish artist Joan Miró was one of the most significant early proponents of Surrealism. This large painting belongs to a series of eighteen similar compositions. Based on an earlier collage of biomorphic fragments cut out from sales catalogs, the painting presents an image of abstracted forms interlocked across the surface of the canvas. The hard-edged organic shapes, rendered primarily with flat blacks and whites but also with simple primary and secondary hues, are set against an amorphous brown and green background. The painting exhibits a tension between the illusion of depth and an emphasis on flat surface effects, as Miró's amoeba-like forms appear to be in constant metamorphosis and flux. They waver between being purely formal elements and alluding to organic entities. At the same time, within the context of the early 1930s, the large, dark, and foreboding shapes that invade and subsume others might be seen as a reference to fascist violence and cruelty. [Permanent collection label, 2019]

Artist Joan Miró (Spanish, 1893–1983)
Title Peinture (Painting)
Date 1933
Medium Oil on canvas mounted on board
Dimensions unframed | 51 15/16 x 77 5/8 in.
Credit line University purchase, Kende Sale Fund, 1945
Object number WU 3768

Technique oil painting
Work type painting
Theme Abstraction

Currently on View Gertrude Bernoudy Gallery, Room 3

Joan Miró: Painting and Anti-Painting 1927–1937
Museum of Modern Art, New York, 11/02/2008 - 01/12/2009

Joan Miró, 1917–1934: La Naissance du Monde (The Birth of the World)
Musée National d’Art Moderne, Centre Pompidou, 03/03/2004 - 06/28/2004

Picasso to Pollock: H.W. Janson and the Legacy of Modern Art at Washington University in St. Louis
Marion Koogler McNay Art Museum (San Antonio, Texas), 08/17/2004 - 10/24/2004

H. W. Janson and the Legacy of Modern Art at Washington University in St. Louis
Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Washington University in St. Louis, 08/30/2002 - 12/08/2002
Salander-O’Reilly Galleries (New York, New York), 03/12/2002 - 04/06/2002

Surrealism and Abstract Expressionism
Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Washington University in St. Louis, 01/12/1998 - 04/05/1998

Abstract Expressionism: American Art in the 1950s and 1960s
Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Washington University in St. Louis, 01/17/1997 - 04/06/1997

A Gallery of Modern Art
Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Washington University in St. Louis, 08/09/1994 - 10/16/1994

Modernism at Midstream: From Europe to America and Back Again
Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Washington University in St. Louis, 09/04/1983 - 11/06/1983

Cubists, Surrealists, and Expressionists

Capsule of Modern Art
Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Washington University in St. Louis, 01/09/1983 - 03/06/1983

Miró in America
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (Houston, Texas), 04/21/1982 - 06/27/1982

The Centennial Exhibition
Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Washington University in St. Louis, 05/15/1981 - 10/11/1981

Miró: Selected Paintings
Buffalo AKG Art Museum, 06/27/1980 - 08/17/1980

Joán Miro: The Development of a Sign Language
Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Washington University in St. Louis, 03/19/1980 - 04/27/1980
Smart Museum of Art, The University of Chicago, 05/15/1980 - 06/18/1980

Cubist, Expressionist, and Surrealist Paintings and Sculptures

20th Century Masterworks from St. Louis Collections
Saint Louis Art Museum, 12/01/1973 - 02/03/1974

Washington University Collection of Modern Paintings and Sculpture from Daumier to Pollock
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 04/06/1966 - 05/08/1966

Miró in St. Louis
Saint Louis Art Museum, 10/01/1965 - 11/07/1965

Art at Washington University
Saint Louis Art Museum, 05/07/1953 - 05/31/1953

An Exhibition of Contemporary Art
Fine Arts Center Gallery, University of Arkansas, 04/15/1951 - 05/15/1951

H. W. Janson and the Legacy of Modern Art 2002

May 12, 1933–at least, June 22, 1933
Artist, Mont-roig del Camp and Barcelona, Spain [1]

November 1933–October 22, 1936
Pierre Loeb (1897–1964), Paris, France, and Cuba / [Galerie Pierre (1924–1964), Paris, France] [2]

by December 29, 1933–May 1934
[Pierre Matisse Gallery (1931–1989), New York, NY, on consignment from the above] [3]

October 22, 1936–September 1937
Museum of Modern Art (1929–present), New York, NY, purchase from Galerie Pierre, Paris, France [4]

September 1937–May 12, 1942
George L. K. Morris (1905–1975), New York, NY, and Lenox, MA, through exchange with the above [5]

May 12, 1942–November 25, 1945
[Pierre Matisse Gallery, New York, NY, purchase from the above] [6]

November 25, 1945–
Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, University purchase, Kende Sale Fund [7]

Notes:

[1]

Pre-conservation image of WU 3768 verso, WU 3768 object file, Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Washington University in St. Louis (hereafter referred to as WU 3768 object file). See also Carolyn Lanchner, Joan Miró, (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1993), 330 and 355, fn 460.

[2]

Series of letters and telegrams from November 1933 between Pierre Matisse and Pierre Loeb discussing Pierre Matisse’s December 1933–January 1934 exhibition of Miró, Box 94, Folder 39, Pierre Matisse Gallery Archives, The Morgan Library & Museum, Department of Literary and Historical Manuscripts, New York, NY (hereafter referred to as Pierre Matisse Gallery Archives).

[3]

Joan Miró: Paintings—December 29th–January 18th, 1934, (New York: Pierre Matisse Gallery, 1934). WU 3784 is listed as number 19 (Composition, 12-5-33) in this catalogue. Also see May 17, 1934, letter from Matisse to Loeb, Pierre Matisse Gallery Archives, Box 94, Folder 40. In this letter, Matisse states that he would send the Mirós that had not been sold back to Paris within a week. He had previously told Matisse in a letter from March 6, 1934, that the works he had sold were “#1, 5, 6, 11” in the 1933/34 catalogue.

[4]

Melinda A. Lorenz, George L. K. Morris: Artist and Critic (Michigan: UMI Research Press, 1982), 137, fn 54. In this footnote, Lorenz states of Morris, “While purchasing a Miró composition of 1933 for the museum, he bought one for himself.” See also Michael Asher, Painting and sculpture from the Museum of Modern Art: catalog of deaccessions, 1929 through 1998 (New York, Museum of Modern Art, 1999), p. 12. See also June 10, 2019, email between the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum and the Museum of Modern Art, WU 3768 object file.

[5]

William Rubin, Miró: In the Collection of the Museum of Modern Art (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1973), p. 7. Rubin states that in the summer of 1937, while Alfred Barr and members of the acquisitions committee were in Europe, they purchased a large Miró painting that they later exchanged for one from George L. K. Morris’ collection. MoMA assigned the painting from Morris’ collection the accession number 229.37 (now 229.1937) and assigned WU 3786 the accession number “89.36.” Because the last two digits in the accession number specify the year of acquisition, we can conclude the WU 3786 was accessioned in 1936 and exchanged for MoMA 229.1937 in 1937. WU 3768 is also identified by photograph and number 89.36 in the MoMA deaccession file, along with the note “Exchanged for George Morris’ Miró.”

[6]

Letter dated May 12, 1942, from Pierre Matisse Gallery to George L. K. Morris, Box 88, Folder 01, Pierre Matisse Gallery Archives. See also Pierre Matisse Gallery purchase book, May 12, 1942, stock #1255, Box 171, Folder 33, Pierre Matisse Gallery Archives.

[7]

WU 3768 object file, Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Washington University in St. Louis (hereafter referred to as WU 3768 object file). See also purchase form for order no. 10144, Box 80, Folder 06, Pierre Matisse Gallery Archives. See also Pierre Matisse Gallery stock book, Sales 1932–1946, Box 172, Folder 05, Pierre Matisse Gallery Archives.

Inscription [Verso:] Joan Miró 12.5.33

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