Composition 1951 - Voeux de Mme Aimé Maeght. Composition 1951 - Greetings from Mme Aimé Maeght. No 1. by Joàn Miró, 1893-1983

Joàn Miró, 1893-1983
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Composition 1951 - Voeux de Mme Aimé Maeght. Composition 1951 - Greetings from Mme Aimé Maeght. No 1.

Original etching with engraving and 'open-bite' printed in two colours - turquoise and magenta-red with black. 1951. Extremely rare impression with individually applied colours - only very few exist in this form. Unsigned as issued. Printed at the Atelier Lacourière, Paris 1951. Issued by Mme Maeght as a greeting card for 1951. Complete with the fold 'greetings page'.
Ref: Dupin - Miro Engraver no 72 - variant impression.
Provenance: Private Collection - Sent to owner by Mme Maeght 1951.

Excellent impression with beautiful colours. On pale cream light wove paper. Excellent condition; pinholes in extreme outer margin corners where previously pinned to a board by the owner. Complete with the fold-sheet as a greetings card. Full margins; sheet 4 7/8 x 6ins. Plate: 3 7/8 x 5ins (98x128mm).

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This exceptional group of colour etchings date from one of the most inventive periods in Miro?s etched oeuvre, just after he had left New York to return to Paris at the end of the War and had first started to work at Lacourière?s studio. They show the extraordinary inspiration of his creation of form through almost random etching effects, in the manner of the ?automatic writing? drawings of the pre-war surrealist period, and the genius of applying the ink colours so that they ?extend? the image.

Mme Maeght asked Miro to make her an etching to use as a greetings card for her friends for 1951. Instead of making a single composition Miro etched three. Moreover instead of deciding on a single inking of the colours he began to experiment, making a few with one arrangement of colours and then a few more with a different arrangement but the same black plate. He extended this over the group of three compositions. The number of variations of each is not known, but very few exist which are the same. Because of their initially ephemeral nature (as greetings cards) they have become extremely rare.

This group of four prints, sent to the previous owner by Mme Maeght in 1951, has the three compositions of the black plates, but with two versions of one. All are totally different from the ones illustrated in the Dupin catalogue of Miro?s work.