Joan Miro Hc

With his wide-ranging oeuvre, comprising strikingly original paintings, prints, ceramics, sculptures, metal engravings and murals, Catalan modernist Joan Miró was a critical force in moving 20th-century art toward complete abstraction. Although often considered an early Surrealist because of his nonobjective imagery and evocation of the subconscious, he defies neat categorization.

Miró’s identity is largely rooted in the city of his birth: Barcelona. To this day, a number of his public artworks can be found there, including the 72-foot-tall statue Dona i Ocell (Woman and Bird), 1983. Female and avian forms, along with bright colors and the theme of Catalan pride, are recurring elements in his work.

The radical visual world Miró created with his expressive lines, signature symbols and biomorphic shapes influenced such American Abstract Expressionists as Jackson Pollock and Color Field painters like Mark Rothko and Barnett Newman.

Mirò continued to work and experiment until his death at the age of 90 in 1983. Five years before that, he was quoted saying, “I painted these paintings in a frenzy, with real violence so that people will know that I am alive, that I’m breathing, that I still have a few more places to go. I’m heading in new directions.”

Find a collection of original Joan Miró art on 1stDibs.

Prints are works of art produced in multiple editions. Though several copies of a specific artwork can exist, collectors consider antique and vintage prints originals when they have been manually created by the artist or are “impressions” that are part of the artist’s intent for the work.

Modern artists use a range of printmaking techniques to produce different types of prints such as relief, intaglio and planographic. Relief prints are created by cutting away a printing surface to leave only a design. Ink or paint is applied to the raised parts of the surface, and it is used to stamp or press the design onto paper or another surface. Relief prints include woodcuts, linocuts and engravings.

Intaglio prints are the opposite of relief prints in that they are incised into the printing surface. The artist cuts the design into a block, plate or other material and then coats it with ink before wiping off the surface and transferring the design to paper through tremendous pressure. Intaglio prints have plate marks showing the impression of the original block or plate as it was pressed onto the paper.

Artists create planographic prints by drawing a design on a stone or metal plate using a grease crayon. The plate is washed with water, then ink is spread over the plate and it adheres to the grease markings. The image is then stamped on paper to make prints.

All of these printmaking methods have an intricate process, although each can usually transfer only one color of ink. Artists use separate plates or blocks for multiple colors, and together these create one finished work of art.

Find prints ranging from the 18th- and 19th-century bird illustrations by J.C. Sepp to mid-century modern prints, as well as numerous other antique and vintage prints at 1stDibs. Browse the collection today and read about how to arrange wall art in your space.