A new exhibition displays fascinating Miró sculptures, drawings and photographs that never have been shown before.
The Spanish artist Joan Miró is known for playful paintings in bright colours, but he was also a very talented sculptor.
One hundred of Miró's finest sculptures are now on display In a new exhibition at The Centro Botin museum in Santander/Spain. The time span of the sculptures covers more than 50 years from 1928 up to 1982, a year before his death.
The sculptures on display are mainly from the Miró family private collection, but also from several other donors such as the MoMA (Museum of Modern Art in New York) or the Museo Reina Sofia in Madrid. Some of the sculptures, however, never have been publicly exhibited before, as Miró had stored many objects in his studio hidden from public view.
Miro's grandson Joan Punyet Miró is one of the curators of the exhibition. A curator is a specialist and custodian of an exhibition in a museum. Joan Punyet Miró arranged the transport and exhibition of the many fragile and delicate art works.
The grandson explains that his grandfather loved to collect things on long walks. The artist also used items he 'found at home, or on a scrap heap. Whether it was seashells, pitch forks, rusting shovels, chestnuts, bottles, roots or bubble wrap - they all found their way into Miro's sculptural world.'
Miró worked with many different materials: wood, other times clay, resin, fibreglass or bronze, which was his favourite material.
"I'm building myself a large studio filled with sculptures that give you the overpowering feeling of entering a new world," was how Miró once described his enthusiasm for sculpting.
"The sculptures must resemble monsters living in the studio, in a world of their own."
Even though Miró was a Spanish artist, many of his artworks bear French titles. Mira lived for various periods in the French capital Paris from 1920 onwards.
Among his most famous works is "Femme et oiseau" (woman and bird), a painted bronze sculpture made from a black varnished box, a lemon-yellow pitch fork and a red sphere.
source: DPA International and Centro Botin
images: 1. Centro Botin and 2. Photo Claude Germain – Archives Fondation Maeght, Saint-Paul de Vence (France). ©Successió Miró 2018