“For me, an object, it’s a living thing… objects may not move, but they spark, in my soul, such grand movements.”
—Joan Miró

Joan Miró’s Femme et oiseau, 1971, is a life-size assemblage sculpture, cast in bronze at the Clementi foundry in Meudon, France. Though Miró may be best known for his seemingly abstract paintings, and his association with the Parisian Surrealist scene of the 1920s and 1930s, sculpture and the primacy of objects have always been at the center of his artistic practice. In an oft-repeated anecdote from his youth, Miró shared that, as an art student in Barcelona, he learned to draw with his eyes closed: his instructor blindfolded him, placed objects in his hands, and instructed Miró to draw what his hands “saw.” “My taste for sculpture certainly dates back to this period,” Miró reflected in 1970.ⁱ Though he created his first free-standing bronze objects after World War II, it wasn’t until the mid-1960s that he began working with bronze sculpture in earnest.ⁱⁱ

“Unexpected encounters between objects such as he brings about are always humorous, and yet are also part of the solemn magic game at which Miró is an adept.”
—Roland Penrose

The second of an edition of two, Femme et oiseau embodies Miró’s signature playfulness in the mélange of natural and man-made objects stacked together. Working from the base upwards, we see a log-like form with an ovular incision, hollowed out with an interior pattern reminiscent of fishbones, or leaves. Two rocks attached to the back of the base seem like knots in a tree. Above the trunk is a double-necked jug on its side, allowing the viewer to see through the work to the drain at the jug’s base. Two winglike forms are grafted to the jug’s sides, and above it, Miró stacks more rocks and cylindrical objects. At top there is a delicate object, shaped like a man on his side, tipping his hat. The transformation of these objects into bronze, topped off in the “magical” patina of the Clementi foundry that Miró so cherished, places Femme et oiseau firmly among Miró’s best sculptural works of the period.ⁱⁱⁱ

 

The forms of Femme et oiseau draw on the shapes and symbols of Miró’s two-dimensional works. The title of the work references two of Miró’s favored motifs, women and birds. The femme form comes across in the ovoid cut out at the base of Femme et oiseau, a yonic shorthand for female genitalia often used by the artist. The winglike protrusions on the central jug bring birds to mind, as does the delicate shape at the top of the work, reminiscent of a metal weathervane.

 

“When I pick up a stone, it’s nothing but a stone. When Miró picks up a stone, it’s a Miró.”
—Joan Prats 

Miró found inspiration for his sculptures in the world around him. Working from his studio in the countryside, he picked up objects on his daily walks and assembled them in a freeform, associative manner to build his sculptures.^iv The process of creation and physically handling these everyday objects transformed the assemblage into something completely new. As Alain Jouffroy observed, “Miró invents objects, like he invents signs. He’s not content to just give things form and impose a style on them. He proposes to create with them, starting from nothing.”^v

 

Femme et oiseau was cast by Clementi, a foundry Miró collaborated with from 1967 to 1973. Miró worked with several foundries over the years, but found that each had its own strengths, and each collaboration inspired a different kind of work; “each one gives me ideas,” he said, with works from Clementi being “the most free.”^vi In a letter to his gallerist and friend, Pierre Matisse, Miró shared that Clementi was best for “rich and personal patinas,” which he found “highly magical.”^vii  Indeed, the patina of Femme et oiseau has a strong variation of brown and green tones that give the work an otherworldly quality, like an ancient Greek bronze, fished out of a shipwreck, seen in sunlight for the first time in centuries. 

 

Miró’s imaginative practice benefits from such fanciful associations, and the freedom of creative expression without barriers was of utmost importance to him—“the word freedom… has a meaning for me,” he said, and “I will defend it at any cost.”^viii  To call works cast by Clementi “the most free,” then signifies Miró’s satisfaction with Femme et oiseau. The work shows Miró at his finest, decades into his career, and still innovating. In his own words, Miró had become the sort of artist he most admired: “each year of their old age marks a new birth. The great ones develop and grow as they get older.”^ix

 

 

ⁱ Joan Miró, quoted in Dean Swanson, “Extraits d’une interview avec Joan Miró,” in Sculptures de Miró, ceramics de Miró et Llorens Artigas, exh. cat.,, Fondation Maeght, 1973, p. 29. Translated from French original.
ⁱⁱ Jean-Louis Prat, Joan Miró: Métamorphoses des formes, exh. cat., Fondation Maeght, Saint-Paul de Vence, 2001, p. 213.

ⁱⁱⁱJoan Miró, letter to Pierre Matisse, Feb. 17, 1970, quoted in Joan Punyet Miró, et al., Miró the Sculptor: Elements of Nature, exh cat., Acquavella, New York, 2020, p. 99.
^iv Miró et al., 12.
^v Alain Jouffroy, quoted in Prat, 130. Translated from French original.
^vi Miró, quoted in Swanson, 32. Translated from French original.
^vii Miró, letter to Pierre Matisse, quoted in Miró et al., 99.

^viii Miró, quoted in Georges Duthuit, “Where are you going, Miró?” Cahiers d’art, nos. 8-10, 1936, reproduced in Margit Rowell, Joan Miró: Selected Writings and Interviews, Boston, 1992, p. 150.

^ix Ibid.