On the first days of February, it began the art auctions season in London, where it´s been showed the masterwork by Joan Miró “The ladder of scape”, painting not shown in public since half a century ago and not set in an auction for the last 60 years. With an opening price of 5.8 € millions, this work by the great Spanish painter didn´t meet a buyer, as it occured in the case of paintings by Picasso and Modigliani.
In this post we want to briefly remember -or discover- the figure of Miro, whose existence the youngest and less art addicted people maybe remember for more commercial works like the promotional image of Spain as tourism world leader or the Soccer World Cup played in Spain in 1982.
Related to surrealism and being someone who never pursued becoming a member of any art movement, perhaps time has been unfair to Joan Miró in comparison with his Spanish colleagues Picasso and Dali, who had a perfect maîtrise of performance and what it´s called personal branding nowadays.
Anyway, the paintings of this family man -not the regular art star at that time-, from Barcelone always spoke for itself, reaching an own entity absolutely inimitable and recognizable worldwide.
A few of us could suspect that a painter who saw his life and work as a ladder between earth and the great beyond (someone clearly obsessed with ladders and spirituality) would have long discussing, drinking and boxing sessions with the American writer Ernest Hemingway during their meetings at the farm representated in different works by Miró, ” brotherhood” intellectual sessions in which nobody knows who won everynight and if they were drunk or not at boxing.
The artistry of Joan Miró , A step above, CBS Sunday Morning 7/1/12
In this CBS broadcast video we can discover Hemingway´s episodes, as well as Miró´s positioning against the militar strike by Franco and the consecuent Spanish civil war between 1936 and 1939, making political posters to encourage French people to fight fascism in Spain, right before the beginning of the 2nd World War. It is interesting too, to see Miró working at his studio on the burnt canvas series in 1973 and how he set the canvas on fire on the floor to inmediately throw them a bucket of water and leave the work finished the way flames decided.
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Prominent figure of art in 20th century, Miró died in 1983 at 80, leaving after a magnificent c
areer that gave him the right to enter in History of Art.
