The Lizard with the Golden Feathers by Joan Miró
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The Lizard with the Golden Feathers 1967

Joan Miró

InkPaper
33 ⨯ 48 cm
ConditionExcellent
Currently unavailable via Gallerease

  • About the artwork
    medium: lithograph
    printed by: Mourlot, Paris
    reference: Mourlot 446
    From the edition of 80 unsigned test proofs, distributed before the cancellation of the original Le Lezard aux Plumes d'or Suite. Printed by the Atelier Mourlot, Paris.
    In 1967, Joan Miro created 18 original color lithographs to accompany his poem "The Lizard with the Golden Feathers". Some time after the circulation of these original prints, Miro noticed a manufacturing defect in the paper and decided to stop the circulation of the Le Lezard aux Plumes d'or series (Maeght 445-462). Only the works already in circulation survived as well as the test proofs that had been sent to certain galleries for their catalogues. The complete number of survived prints is unknown but it is estimated that there would be, for every plate: 80 tests aside from the signed and numbered edition.
    Since the original stones from the Le Lezard aux Plume d'or Portfolio had been obliterated, they could not proceed with a new circulation of the same compositions, and so Joan Miro created a second Lizard with the Golden Feathers Suite with new lithographs in 1971 (Maeght 789 - 828).
  • About the artist

    Joan Miró was a Spanish painter, sculptor, graphic artist and ceramist from Catalonia. He is considered one of the greatest surrealists. Miró was the son of a goldsmith and watchmaker. Initially he followed a trade education, but in 1912 he started an art education in Barcelona. In 1920 he moved to Paris where he took lessons at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière. In Paris Miró made friends with Picasso, Max Ernst, Hans Arp and Magritte and came under the influence of Cubism. Like Picasso and Georges Braque, Miró never pursued the conclusions of cubism to complete abstraction. His forms, however alienating, always refer to reality - to concrete reality, or to reality as it exists during dreaming.