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Joan Miró 1893 - 1983 Personnages et oiseau, 1975 Signed. Titled, dated and annotated verso Mixed media on cardboard 29 ½ x 41 ¾ in, 75 x 106 cm Provenance Pierre Matisse Gallery Acquavella Gallery Private collection, Japan Galerie Lelong, Paris Galerie Michael Haas, Berlin Private collection, Brussells Literature This work will be reproduced in the 'Catalogue Raisonné of drawings volume IV being prepared by Jacques Dupin and Ariane Lelong-Mainaud Created at the end of Miró's career, Untitled (1977) and Personnages, oiseau (1975) are emblematic of the artist's lifelong experimentation with abstraction and representation. During the last years of his life Miró embraced childlike spontaneity and freedom of expression. In each of these works Miró has combined a series of playful, loose lines, reminiscent of his Surrealist automatic drawings, with strong powerful curves, evocative of Abstract Expressionism's emphasis upon gesture and movement. By the 1970s music, like poetry, had become an important influence upon Miró. The artist spoke of his admiration for classical composers, especially Bach, and the significance of the sounds of his native Catalonia. Compositions such as these are characterised by their musical quality; rhythmic relationships are formed between arcs, dots and calligraphic lines and the empty space between them. Miró also began to use colour in a more lyrical and sparing manner. In Untitled (1977) unusually pale shades of pink and turquoise have been delicately drawn onto a white background. Although he increasingly experimented with abstraction, Miró remained an advocate of figurative art: "Most artists are afraid that if they start painting figuratively again, they will be criticised...Modern art is moving along an increasingly narrow path". In both of these works Miró has refined and simplified his symbolic language. Networks of horizontal and vertical lines overlap with shapes in order to represent figures whose eyes, always a prominent feature, have been deconstructed to small black circles and dots. By the 1970s Miró externalised his internal visions in elegant and simplified compositions, such as these, in which musical rhythm and harmony create a mystical and spiritual reality.