Description

The "personages" we see here—organic figures with tiny heads, disjointed appendages, and schematic breasts—reflect the experimentation across media for which Joan Miró is best known. First in his Barcelona studio in 1933, the artist made a series of small paper collages from precisely rendered engravings of household and mechanical objects. Then, he translated these compositions into large abstract paintings, with multicolored, amorphous forms rendered in silhouette. Inspired by this series, Miró derived Paintings (Figures with Stars) as a cartoon, or full-scale preparatory work, for a tapestry commissioned by French art collector and gallery director Marie Cuttoli, effecting yet another material transformation of his original design from collage to painting to textile.

Provenance

The artist; commissioned by Marie Cuttoli, Paris, 1933 [commissioned as a tapestry design to be executed by a workshop in Aubusson, France for sale in her Paris gallery; New York 1993, London 2007]; returned to the artist for re-touching, by Dec. 14, 1951 [letter from Aimé Maeght to Pierre Matisse, Dec. 14, 1951, Pierre Matisse Gallery Archives, The Morgan Library & Museum; letter from Pierre Matisse to Courtney Donnell, Oct. 26, 1976; copies in curatorial object file]; sold to Pierre Matisse Gallery, New York, by Mar. 1952 [Aimé Maeght facilitated this sale, according to letter from Aimé Maeght to Pierre Matisse, Feb. 15, 1952, Pierre Matisse Gallery Archives, The Morgan Library & Museum; copy in curatorial file]; sold to Mr. and Mrs. Maurice E. Culberg, Chicago, by Oct. 27, 1952 [“Culberg’s Contemporaries,” 1952]; given to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1952.