JOAN MIRO AND THE ADVENTURE OF MODERN ART

LA ROSE, 1 9 1 6.

THEEXHIBITION "MIRO-DALMAU-GASCH.L'AVENTURA PER L'ART MODERN", WHICH IS ON AT THE SANTAMONICA ART CENTREDURING THE CELEBRATION OF THE JOANMIRO CENTENARY, ATTEMPTS AN ANALYSIS OF THE RELATIONS AND COMMITMENTS THAT EXISTED BETWEEN THESE THREE WARRIORS OF MODERN ART, THREE FIGURES WHO PUT CATALONIAAMONGST THE RANKS OF THE INTERNATIONAL AVANT-GARDE.

PILAR PARCERISAS ART CRITIC

CATALONIA JOAN MIR~

PEINTURE, T~EARAIGNÉE SUR KXJD BEU, 1 925

n an article published in the Ga- first art critic with a commitment to the nary, attempts an analysis of the rela- seta de les Arts in 1925 the art avant-garde and modern art. But no tions and commitments that existed be- Lcritic SebastiLi Gasch declared mention of the part played by Barcelo- tween these three warriors of modern that "the work of Joan Miró represen- na and Catalonia in avant-garde circles art: an artist, a critic and a gallery ted the most original and most impor- would be complete unless it included owner, three figures who, even if from a tant undertaking since Picasso in the the most emblematic figure of the spirit peripheral or fringe position, put Cata- arena of modern painting". With this of the avant-garde, the gallery owner lonia amongst the ranks of the interna- categorical, resounding statement, Josep Dalmau. tional avant-garde. Gasch committed himself in public to Now, an exhibition with the title "Miró- Josep Dalmau (1867-1 937), painter, the eterna1 defence of the work of Joan Dalmau-Gasch. L'aventura per l'art restorer, antiquarian, gallery owner and Miró, an artist with whom he shared a modern, 19 1 8- 1937", curated by Joan promoter of the arts, was a visionary deep friendship for many decades. Miguet i Batllori, Jaume Vida1 i Olive- who emerged from the mists of symbo- If Miró is the first modern painter after ras and Pilar Parcerisas and presented lism to establish his utopia in the clear Picasso's classicism, Gasch also, in the at the Santa Mbnica Art Centre during light of the avant-garde break with the context of Catalonia and Spain, is the the celebration of the Joan Miró cente- past. It was in his gallery in the Carrer JOAN MIRÓ

Portaferrissa in Barcelona, premisses he who were fighting for modern art, special sensibility and eye to reflect rea- ran from 19 11 to 1923, that he dis- something that forged a solid friendship lity. "Everything is contained in rea- played his progressive leanings through between them and generated correspon- lity", says Miró to his friend Ricart in a international avant-garde exhibitions of dence of great interest. These artists letter of 19 19. During this period, Miró which one of the most important was were J.F. Rafols, E.C. Ricart, R. Sala looked on the landscape and al1 it con- the exhibition of Cubist art in 1912, and Joan Miró. For these and other tained as a great spectacle, "the theatre with such outstanding works as Marcel artists, Josep Dalmau was more than just of nature". Duchamp's "Nude Descending a Stair- a gallery owner. The letters they wrote His friend E.C. Ricart, for his part, case", a canvas exhibited in Barcelona to one another during this period reveal speaks in his unpublished memoirs of without pain or glory and which a year that Dalmau advised them on painting Joan Miró's particular sensibility and later was to immortalize Marcel Du- techniques, on the use of materials, on his passion for Cézanne: "Miró found it champ in the "Armory Show" exhibi- the perdurability of pictorial work -one very difficult to capture the exact form tion in New York. Dalmau was also the of Joan Miró's greatest concerns. We of objects and often had to make use of promoter of the exhibition "Art francks have to remember that Josep Dalmau his sense of touch rather than sight. He d'avant-guarda" in 1920 and other one- had a reputation as a good restorer and couldn't always see at once whether the man shows by modem artists -Torres- that he made a name for himself with edge of that table was sharp or the Garcia, Albert Gleizes, Helena Grun- the recomposition of Maria Fortuny's handle on that pitcher was rounded, hoff, Serge Charchoune, Otto Weber, painting La batalla de Tetuán. But Dal- and he had to get up close to it and even Van Dongen, Salvador Dalí and Francis mau also bought the occasional painting touch it. His colour vision was no more Picabia, for example; the last of these at from them, helped them find studios, accurate. His landscapes of Ciurana and a famous exhibition presented by André and, because he was one of the few to Mont-roig during the Galinian period, Breton in 1922. Picabia had already have travelled to Paris, London, Ant- with the colours of the sky against the made his presence felt in Barcelona be- werp and other European cities, had trees and of the trees against the sky, are fore this when, taking refuge in the Ca- valuable contacts al1 over the continent. evidence enough of this (...) . The in- talan capital from the roar of the cannon He was an open window on the world. fluence of Cézanne and his great pas- of World War 1, he launched the first His exhibitions at the Galeries Dalmau sion made him observe the spectacle of four numbers of the magazine 391 in were always anxiously awaited by this nature in a new way, and Miró was Barcelona, in the circles of which Dal- group of young people. enraptured by the shape of things to the mau was the centre. It is thanks to this In 1918 Dalmau put on the first one- point of analysing the tiniest details and that Barcelona, even if only peripher- man show by Joan Miró, made up of capturing them in a highly reasoned ally and often blurred by mistakes, has almost two hundred works, of which no and decorative fashion. If he had to figured in international accounts of more than about sixty were paintings paint a vine, for example, he didn't just "Dada". and the rest drawings. These works re- interpret what we see from above But Dalmau's galleries also exhibited vea1 Miró's Catalan roots, his attach- ground, but painted the roots and all." young artists in Catalonia who were ment to the red soil of Mont-roig, Ciu- At the 1918 show at Dalmau's gallery trying to make a break with tradition rana, Prades, landscapes painted with a -of which some of the paintings are and with the realism imposed by Nou- devotion for Cézanne and Fauvism, but included in the exhibition "Miró-Dal- centisme. Between 1916 and 1918 he that set out, as we have seen, to struc- mau-Gaschn- not one of Joan Miró's exhibited one by one a new generation ture colour according to the dictates of a works was sold. The exhibition was a JOAN MIRO

aAIDEZ L'ESPAGNEp POSTER. 1937 controversia1 one and went down badly tingly found himself on the path fol- the first person to draw the connection with the public. Sebastia Gasch remem- lowed by the superrealists" (La Veu de between the central figures of the avant- bers it in later articles: "some of the Catalunya, 1928). garde in Catalonia. Dalmau remained drawings which Joan Miró exhibited in In Paris, Miró sought for contact with the true introducer and Picasso, Miró 19 18 at the Galeries Dalmau were torn Picasso and at the same time took ad- and Dali the gates to the future: "paint- up without pity. And someone took on vantage of the contacts afforded him by ing, though, is bound to disappear, be- himself the burdensome task of not the dealer Josep Dalmau -who man- cause itis-uná6le10-safisfit~ s~ritual moving from the exhibition during the aged to arrange an exhibition for him at needs of our age (...). Equidistant be- whole day so as to inform visitors that- the Galerie La Licorne in Paris in 192 1, tween painting and the activities men- the whole thing was the work of a mad- for which he paid the distinguished cri- tioned, though, there are some painters, man". And in another article: "Every- tic Maurice Raynal to write an intro- very few: the most gifted, the most in- body remembers the vicious jokes, the duction, possibly the first attempt at tense and the purest. Farsighted paint- heartless attacks and the cruel treat- exporting Catalan painting abroad. The ers who have become aware of the trag- ment meted out to Joan Miró, who was exhibition was not the success that was ic cul-de-sac in which painting is pain- considered quite simply a fool (...). Un- hoped for, either with the public or with fully evolving... There are three of these ti1 the inevitable happened. Miró deci- the collectors, and was to mark the end painters, Picasso, Miró, Dalí. The ded to emigrate. And he moved to Pa- of professional dealings between Joan achievements of these painters, which ris. And the heartless attacks which had Miró and Josep Dalmau. Miró's success can no longer be described as pictorial, never ceased their relentless persecution in Paris came through Pierre Loeb and are the weapon with which painting will of him automatically became uncondi- his galleries, a far more powerful dealer be murdered, the springboard which tional praise" (La Publicitat, 1932). who conveniently harvested the efforts will allow a new generation to make the After this exhibition, Miró had a single Dalmau had made to promote Miró. leap from the pictorial age to the future obsession: Paris, where he moved in While Joan Miró's relations with Josep age, which will allow younger people, March 1920 and was made welcome by Dalmau became ever more remote, his perhaps not even born, to devote them- the surrealist circles with whom, while friendship with Sebastia Gasch grew selves fully to activities more in keeping not joining them, he at least kept up stronger. Gasch was to become an am- with our age". (LAmic de les Arts, No. relations as a travelling companion. bassador for Miró's painting in Catalo- 30, 1928). Gasch, reflecting on this, once said, nia, which did not see another indivi- There is no doubt that Joan Miró, Josep "The superrealists have appropriated dual exhibition by the artist until 1949, Dalmau and Sebastia Gasch were uni- our friend. In spite of having categori- by which time he was the object of ted in their passion for the present, cally refused to sign any group's mani- homage. Through his articles in the spe- their vision of the future, the risk of festo, he felt quite at home in such cialist magazines of the period, Gasch what is new, their radical attitude, the neighbourhoods for a certain time (...). continued to defend Joan Miró as a spirit of modernity, the conscience of a If Miró paints as he paints, if Miró is in landmark in modern art, in spite of the new age, their untiring work, their ge- agreement with some of the directives years of the Franco regime, bracketing nius and recklessness, the dream of of superrealism, it is not because he has him together with Picasso and Dalí changing the world and transforming consented to the dictates of a passing (with Dalí he later also established a the smugness of Catalan society, im- fashion. It is because his temperament special relationship). mersed in a provincialism that has las- advises him to do so. Miró has unwit- Gasch, then, in different writings, was ted decades. ¤