Portland Public Library

Calder/Miró, edited by Elizabeth Hutton Turner and Oliver Wick

eng

Includes bibliographical references (pages 300-303) and index

illustrations

index present

non fiction

Calder/Miró

bibliographycatalogs

54479226

edited by Elizabeth Hutton Turner and Oliver Wick

"Sculptor Alexander Calder (1898-1976) and painter Joan Miro (1893-1983) became lifelong friends after their first meeting in Paris in 1928. This book and the exhibition it accompanies are about their extraordinary friendship and the early years of their careers." "The charming correspondence between Calder and Miro is published here for the first time. It begins in 1928 with Calder's letter introducing himself to Miro and continues after Calder's death with Miro's poetic homage to his old friend. Rare photographs of the two men together and of the gifts of artwork they exchanged document the friendship. An extensive chronology highlights the intersecting lives of the two artists and, with the correspondence, opens a window into the personal and professional lives of these two giants of artistic invention." "Calder and Miro shared many artistic interests, and the catalogue is organized around common themes such as the circus, bestiary, universe, and constellations. The artists shared an ambition to create monumental works for public spaces, but while waiting for those opportunities their unique approach to their work allowed them to achieve monumentality on a reduced scale. Miro's small Constellations evoke the tradition of Romanesque frescoes, while Calder's earliest stabiles and mobiles occupy space in a way that transcends their size, paving the way for later monumental works. The editors, in their two essays and in their organization of the color plates, focus on the first two decades of the artists' careers, culminating in the monumental public commissions that Calder and Miro received for the decoration of the Terrace Plaza Hotel, Cincinnati, in 1947"--Jacket

Foreword / Alexander S.C. Rower, Emilio Fernandez Miro and Joan Punyet Miro -- Preface and acknowledgments / Ernst Beyeler and Jay Gates -- Calder and Miro : a new space for the imagination / Elizabeth Hutton Turner -- "Je vais t'emporter en Amerique. Prepare-toi" : a long road to monumental dimensions -- beyond painting / Oliver Wick -- The works -- Toys and circus -- Performed portraits -- Sensation of the universe -- Found forms -- In the spirit of Jeux d'enfants -- Frames and shadows -- Bestiary and nursery mural -- The war years : seclusion and constellations -- Lyrical space -- Comme des Grandes Fresques -- a new monumentality -- List of works -- The correspondence of Alexander Calder and Joan Miro -- Chronology : the intersecting lives of Alexander Calder and Joan Miro / Susan Behrends Frank