Rijksmuseum Amsterdam 17 June - 13 September 2010
Oil
on canvas, 92 x 73 cm
Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice
76.2553 PG 92
© Successió Miró, c/o Pictoright
Amsterdam 2010
Photo:
David Heald@2010 The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation
From 17 June to 13 September
2010, the series Dutch interiors by Joan Miró (1893-1983) will make its
debut at the Rijksmuseum. Miró travelled to the Netherlands in 1928 and
included the Rijksmuseum in his itinerary. Two interior scenes by
17th-century Dutch masters Hendrick Sorgh and Jan Steen inspired him to
create a series of three paintings, which represent one of the
highlights of Miró's early surrealistic work. The Dutch Interiors, including
sketches and drawings by Miró, have never before been displayed
alongside these 17th-century works, which were the original source of
his inspiration. This exhibition by the Rijksmuseum uniquely brings
together art from the past and present.
n May 1928, Miró travelled from
Paris to the Netherlands and included the Rijksmuseum in his itinerary.
He also took two home two postcards, which were colour reproductions of
paintings from the Rijksmuseum collection: The lute player by
Hendrick Martensz. Sorgh (1661) and Children teaching a cat to dance better
known as The dancing lesson by Jan Havicksz. Steen (c.
1660-1679). Both paintings feature a musician, surrounded by one or more
listeners, a cat and a dog. In the Dutch interiors, the scenes
undergo a complete metamorphosis, as Miró captures these figures in his
own surreal fantasy world.
In summer 1928, during a visit
to his studio on the family farm Montroig in Catalonia, Miró drew
inspiration from these two picture postcards, creating the three
paintings later entitled Dutch interiors. Rather than working
spontaneously as he usually did, he prepared an extensive series of
sketches and drawings. The paintings are currently part of the
collections of the Museum of Modern Art (New York), the Peggy Guggenheim
Collection (Venice) and the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York). The
postcards, sketches and drawings were donated by Miró to the Museum of
Modern Art and the Fundació Joan Miró (Barcelona) in the seventies. This
study material offers a unique insight into how Miró transformed the
original 17th-century works.
By working in this way, Miró
subscribed to a long tradition of ‘creative copying’, whereby artists
reinterpreted the masterworks of predecessors, using them as a source of
inspiration for new artworks. Today, as in times past, the Rijksmuseum
collection often serves as a source of inspiration. Nevertheless, the
encounter between Miró and the Dutch masters of the painting genre
represents a rare highlight in art history. The exhibition is an
intriguing and surprising meeting between the Dutch Golden Age and the
avant-garde movement of the 20th century. Jan Steen is one of the
masters of the Dutch Golden Age and is particularly well-known for his
often humorous scenes of everyday life. Following an important
exhibition and several publications, he enjoyed great fame at the end of
the twenties. At that time, Joan Miró was considered as one of the key
exponents of surrealism and painting. He went on to become one of the
most influential and famous artists of his generation.
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