A bird in space: New York’s Nahmad Contemporary presents a selection of Joan Miró’s late works
When Joan Miró visited the United States in 1947, it was an inaugural trip to a country in which he was already a star. Miró’s early works – created from the 1920s to the 1940s – had offered the American avant-garde a welcome alternative to the sterility of geometric abstraction; an altogether more emotional message that seemed more fitting in the wake of the Second World War. Having enjoyed a retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1941, his style is said to have inspired stars such as Rothko, Pollock, Gorky and de Kooning, to name just a few.
>What the Catalan artist didn't anticipate was that an exposure to the work of the young abstract expressionists he had galvanised would set into motion a valuable creative exchange. Their vitality, boldness and daring awakened a new artistic energy in Miró and was ultimately a catalyst to the liberation of his later works. Of his visits to America, Miró said: 'It showed me the liberties we can take, and how far we could go, beyond the limits. In a sense, it freed me.'
It is the artist's more open, dramatic later works – created during this 20-year period of 'liberation' – that are the focus of this new solo show at New York's Nahmad Contemporary. Comparing Miró's newfound freedom to that of a bird in space, the aptly titled 'Oiseaux dans L’Espace' celebrates the gestating forms, flourishes, drips and splashes that would characterise the work he created in the final two decades of his life.
Miró's early works from the 1920s, 30s and 40s are said to have inspired stars such as Rothko, Pollock, Gorky and de Kooning, to name just a few. Pictured left: Oiseau éveillé par le cri de l'azur s'envolant sur la plaine qui respire ('Bird woken by the cry of the azure flying away across the breathing plain'), 1968. Pictured right: Le Vol de l'oiseau par le clair de lune ('The flight of the bird by moonlight'), 1967
In turn, during his trips to America, Miró's exposure to the work of the young American painters that he had helped to inspire awakened a new artistic energy within him and was ultimately the catalyst to the liberation of his late works. Pictured left: La Marche pénible guidée par l'oiseau flamboyant. Pictured right: Personnage aux 3 cheveux, oiseaux, constellations ('Figure with 3 strands of hair, birds, constellations'), 1976
Address
Nahmad Contemporary
980 Madison Avenue
Third Floor
New York, NY 10075
Wallpaper* Newsletter
Receive our daily digest of inspiration, escapism and design stories from around the world direct to your inbox.
-
First look inside 62 Reade Street, a clock factory turned family home
62 Reade Street, a boutique New York residential project by architects ODA, unveils its first apartment interior, courtesy of Hovey Design
By Ellie Stathaki Published
-
Frieze Sculpture takes over Regent’s Park
Twenty-two international artists turn the English gardens into a dream-like landscape and remind us of our inextricable connection to the natural world
By Smilian Cibic Published
-
Lucienne Day’s lesser-known silk textiles are a splendour of geometry and colour at Margaret Howell
Margaret Howell presents British designer Lucienne Day’s 'Silk Mosaics' in a solo exhibition, alongside the launch of the brand's 2025 calendar in homage to Day
By Tianna Williams Published
-
Brutalism in film: the beautiful house that forms the backdrop to The Room Next Door
The Room Next Door's production designer discusses mood-boarding and scene-setting for a moving film about friendship, fragility and the final curtain
By Anne Soward Published
-
'There’s an anxiety under all of it': Violet Dennison in New York
Violet Dennison debuts abstract paintings with new show 'Damaged Self' at Tara Downs Gallery
By Mary Cleary Published
-
‘Gas Tank City’, a new monograph by Andrew Holmes, is a photorealist eye on the American West
‘Gas Tank City’ chronicles the artist’s journey across truck-stop America, creating meticulous drawings of fleeting moments
By Jonathan Bell Published
-
Mark Armijo McKnight’s bodily landscapes capture the tactile serenity of the American West
The artist’s new exhibition at the Whitney Museum, which is organised by the museum curator Drew Sawyer, offers a succinct window into his contemplative suggestion of queering a landscape
By Osman Can Yerebakan Published
-
Dark, glamorous and hedonistic: a photography book captures New York in the 1990s
New York: High Life, Low Life, by Dafydd Jones, goes behind the scenes of New York society
By Hannah Silver Published
-
Derrick Alexis Coard’s portraits are a sensitive, positive testimony to Black men
The late artist Derrick Alexis Coard’s retrospective ‘I Am That I Am’, at New York’s Salon 94, honours his ‘symbolic expression for possible change for the African-American male community’
By Tianna Williams Published
-
Intimacy, violence and the uncanny: Joanna Piotrowska in Philadelphia
Artist and photographer Joanna Piotrowska stages surreal scenes at the Institute of Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania
By Hannah Silver Published
-
First look: Sphere’s new exterior artwork draws on a need for human connection
Wallpaper* talks to Tom Hingston about his latest large-scale project – designing for the Exosphere
By Charlotte Gunn Published