Joan Miro [Paperback]

Joan Miro (Author), Margit Rowell (Author), Paul Auster (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 22, 1992

For nearly seven decades the ebullient art of Joan Miro (1893-1983), Spanish painter, sculptor, ceramist and mythmaker, has intrigued and enchanted art lovers worldwide. This collection of his writings presents a portrait of the artist in his own words. Miro's notebooks, letters, and interviews reveal the work and life of a brilliant artist revered for his uncanny expression of the subconscious. "Joan Miro" centres on Paris during the vibrant era between the wars, when Miro became the intimate of almost everyone in that scene - boxing with young Hemingway, working with Max Ernst on the Ballets Russes, drinking, painting and arguing with Picasso, Braque, Dubuffet, Matisse, Breton and many others. Miro engagingly recounts all of this, as well as stories of his exile during World War II. Miro's virtuosity encompassed drawing, painting, sculpture, ceramics, poetry, stage sets, costumes, murals and tapestries; he vividly describes the creation of these artworks in these pages.

Editorial Reviews

Language Notes

Text: English (translation)
Original Language: Catalan, French, Spanish

Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Da Capo Press (August 22, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0306804859
• ISBN-13: 978-0306804854
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 5.9 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,202,567 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Miro in his Own Voice, March 16, 2001

By 

Daniel C. Boyer (Concord, NH USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Joan Miro (Paperback)

For those who only know Miro as a painter of "abstract" or "childlike" pictures, <i>Joan Miro : Selected Writings and Interviews</i> reveals the true radicalism of his thought, a radicalism which, in the realm of visual art, equals that of Lenin in politics. Unlike other works, which ignore his theories about, for example, the "murder of painting," or acknowledge them only to distort their true meaning, here, "the most surrealist of us all" speaks in his own voice, enabling one to track the evolution of his thought from schoolyard days, through the frustration of his time in the army, to the development of ideas about the pen and brush which challenged the very world as it exists. The man who challenged his father by declaring the sky was purple was an intractable enemy of consensus reality. Yet in his ruthless charge towards the future, he did not cease from being a maker of pictures existing in all time and even outside of time. This work's precious insight provides little comfort for those who, as a defense mechanism or out of studied denial, belittle Miro's connection to surrealism, or the importance of his revolutionary role.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Corrosponding Realities, March 28, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Joan Miro (Paperback)

This selection of Miro's writing provides an interesting view into the intentions, beliefs, and personality of a very engaging and seminal Catalan artist. The book covers the great majority of his life and thoughts, dealing with his early fondness for Dada, his relationship with painters such as Masson, his exilic time in France, plus musings on Catalan nationalism, the surrealist movement, and poetry.

For those die-hard Paul Auster fans (Auster translates the french writings in this text), this book is a worthy read and insight into an artist who Auster devotes time to translating, and in doing so illuminates sympathies between the two: a nostolgic and essentialist notion of art as process that somehow remains endearing in the contemporary world, and somehow demands the respect and admiration that such force and sincerity manifests.

A fascinating read, both as a historical document, and an artistic biography: it provides an interesting glance into one of the most influencial modern painters of Europe whose life was centered in the intellectual and historical complexities of late modernism.

5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent book on insights into Joan Miro, September 13, 2011

By 

D. Lee (VA) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Joan Miro (Paperback)

This book is an excellent study of Joan Miro's creative process. The book is an easy read and surprisingly enjoyable. The selected writings and interviews are in Joan Miro's words, translated of course. There are a few pictures of his work but not many. If you are interested in seeing his work, Taschen's book, "Miro" by Walter Erben and Hajo Duchting has beautiful reproductions.