Joan Mirï½ Feet on the Ground, Eyes on the Stars

Joan Miro: Feet on the Ground, Eyes on the Stars explores the early work of Joan Miro (1893-1983) from the 1920s and 1930s, a period when the artist formed the core visual lexicon that would come to occupy him throughout his entire career. Published on the occasion of an exhibition of the same name at Luxembourg + Co., New York, the book follows a new proposition outlined by Professor Eric Robertson, who suggests that the key to Miro's work from these years begins with his fascination with ground - both as a subject connected to his Catalan roots and as a technical interest in constructing the background of his pictorial universe using monochromatic, uneven surfaces. It is from the ground, explains Robertson, that the formal language developed by Miro during these years emerges as a unique symbolic vocabulary, incorporating a host of biomorphic forms such as body shapes, eyes, feet and male and female genitalia, as well as signs like stars, flowers, grids, letters and numbers. This book offers readers a fresh entry point to the pictorial world of one of the most important artists of the 20th century. AUTHOR: Eric Robertson is Professor of Modern French Literary and Visual Culture at Royal Holloway, University of London. His research focuses primarily on 20th-Century French literature, especially poetry, and the visual arts, with particular emphasis on European Modernism. He has published widely on the European avant-gardes, including Arp: Painter, Poet, Sculptor (2006), winner of the R. Gapper Book Prize. SELLING POINTS: . This publication analyses the work of world-renowned Catalan artist Joan Miro (1893-1983). Focusing on his highly innovative work of the 1920s and 1930s, it examines his close contacts with the Surrealists and the role of poetry in fostering his experimentation in this period . By focusing on his early development, offers a fresh entry point to the pictorial world of one of the most important artists of the 20th century . Preface by Jean-Louis Prat, a friend of Miro's and curator of his retrospective at the Grand Palais, Paris (2018-19) . Published in conjunction with an exhibition at Luxembourg + Co. in their new space in New York's Fuller Building, where Miro had his first American exhibition in 1932 . Explores the links between new motifs in Miro's work and that of contemporaries in Paris such as Georges Bataille, Rene Magritte, Andre Breton and Jean (Hans) Arp . Features a letter written by Miro himself in 1924, reflecting on his own work at the start of this experimental decade 48 colour, 1 b/w illustration