Executed on the first of October 1935, Femme arises from one of the most consequential periods in the artist's career. The decade was marked by a wealth of artistic experimentation across media, from his papier collés to the large-scale paintings based upon his collages (see fig. 1), to the heavily worked pastels (see fig. 2) and the biomorphic gouaches like Femme. This period of immense creativity flourished as Miró began to distance himself from the Surrealist movement and the constraints of its leader, André Breton, and forge a singular path.
“The only thing that is clear to me is that I intend to destroy, destroy everything that exists in painting.”
Miró's enthusiasm for working with new and varied media in the 1930s struck at the heart of his "assassination of painting," which aimed to upend the conventions of bourgeoisie and the mode of creation which represented it. With this exhortation, however, Miró spoke less of denying the technical aspect of artistry—he would still continue to paint during this t.mes —than he did of challenging traditional figuration. The subsequent years devoted to "anti-painting" resulted in a wealth of fantastical creatures rendered in stark and impassioned palettes and developed largely in response to the zeitgeist. This new, reactionary direction in Miró's work was deeply intertwined with the increasing anxieties in Europe leading up to both War War II and the Spanish Civil War.
As Glenn Lowry asserts in the introduction to The Museum of Modern Art's 2008-09 exhibition, Joan Miró: Painting and Anti-Painting, 1927-1937 : "The work [of the 1930s]—experimental, erotic, carnal, and figurative, defiantly refuses to add up; it persistently tests the limits of representation and of abstraction in an increasingly troubled Europe, demanding to be seen as symptomatic of the larger social and political forces leading up to World War II" (Exh. Cat., New York, The Museum of Modern Art, Joan Miró: Painting and Anti-Painting, 1927-1937, 2008-09, p. vi).
By 1935, the heightened fear of war and looming presence of fascism in Europe had thoroughly pervaded the artist's works. Miró's lexicon of hybrid creatures frequently convey equal parts of whimsy and menace, this juxtaposition embodying the turmoil and emotional struggles endured in the months leading up to the war. As Jacques Dupin states of this period: "The serene works of the years devoted to concentration on plastic concerns and to spiritual control of figures and signs now gave way to a new outburst of subjectivism, to an expressionistic unleashing of instinctual forces. The volcano which for some years now had been quiescent suddenly erupted" (Jacques Dupin, Joan Miró: Life and Work, London, 1962, p. 262).
Right: Fig. 4 Joan Miró, Femme devant la lune, 1935, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis. Art © 2024 Successió Miró / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
The suite of gouache and watercolors from this year are defined by the variegated washes of color layered behind abstracted figures precisely that are delineated in rich passages of black gouache or ink (see figs. 4 and 5). For all their expressive power, the fantastical creatures are rendered with great control and attention to detail. Miró's masterful balance in these works on paper convey the intensity and fear that pervaded Europe, and more precisely Spain, at this t.mes , while not allowing his art to be overwhelmed by it.
"Unconsciously I was living in an atmosphere of anxiety characteristic of when something grave must surely take place. Like before it rains: heaviness of head, an aching in the bones, and an asphyxiating dampness. It was more a physical than a moral distress. I sensed a catastrophe and I didn’t know what it would be [...]. I tried to portray this tragic atmosphere that tormented me and that I felt inside me."
The figure in Femme, set against a turbulent background of green, red and yellow—perhaps in part an homage to the flag of his native country—is a study in contrasts. Her puckered lips, prominent eyelashes and cinched dress assert an emphatically feminine presence, yet the figure's elongated head and mismatched arms imbue the work with a sense of disquiet and otherness. Miró's gestural presence is acutely felt in Femme, with the directional quality in the reds and dappled areas in the "sky" and periphery likely a direct result of the artist's fingers.
Discussing the figures within this pivotal series, Dupin writes: "The gouaches done in the summer of 1935 have shown us how Miró was somet.mes s surprised and overwhelmed by the images of terror that pursued him. We saw, too, how somet.mes s he succeeded, by force of will or trickery, to drive them away or otherwise get free of them. He had not accepted their intrusion as an irresistible fatality, still less as a possible means of salvation. In the end, however, the monsters defeated him; they came to stay. In the fall of 1935 he realized that he would be able to free himself from them, if ever, only by putting all his resources at their disposal—his palette, his line, his sensibility, and his intelligence" (Jacques Dupin, Miró, London, 1970, p. 199).
In addition to it's striking coloration and commanding presence, Femme is further distinguished by its impeccable provenance. Originally owned by Pierre Matisse, son of the artist Henri Matisse and the leading dealer of Miró in New York, Femme was held in the Matisse family collects ion for nearly its entire history.
