cover image Joan Miro: Snail Woman Flower Star

Joan Miro: Snail Woman Flower Star

. Prestel Publishing, $70 (240pp) ISBN 978-3-7913-2785-3

Andre Breton, the leading literary force of Surrealism, accused Miro of giving""himself up utterly to painting,"" and not (to the French writer's dismay) to theory. In connection with an exhibition of the Catalan painter's whimsical, cartoon-like collages, drawings and paintings, editors von Wiese and Martin have compiled a catalog that quite handily supports Breton's charge. Long considered a principal Surrealist artist, Miro certainly did focus on the playful, erotic and sinister unconscious--so his instantly recognizable, spindly-limbed amoebas attest. As one essay titled""Miro's Strategies"" notes, the Barcelona-born artist--no stranger to ideology, having navigated strains of Futurism, Dadaism, and Catalan nationalism--managed to remain a reticent ascetic in the flamboyant Paris of the 1920s. Joaquim Gomis's clean, direct photographs show a man with neatly cuffed pants and a dapper tie working in a dusty foundry. But it is the volume's sumptuous reproductions that best bear out Breton's accusation that the artist simply wasn't a theoretician for the movement. More than an automatic doodler, Miro wielded consummate skill with line, composition and palette, producing richly atmospheric works--whether starkly empty canvases or frenetically cramped tableaus. In all cases, his attention to organic forms on deep background color leaves a profound formal legacy. Before he was a theoretician or even a Surrealist, Miro was a painter--a fortuitous failing. 30 b&w photos, 261 b&w and color reproductions.