Joan Miro (1893 – 1983)

[29 Mar 2004]

 

The National Museum of Modern Art in Paris is currently hosting a major exhibition of Joan Miró’s pre-1934 work, which brings together the artist’s early pieces. Until 2001, shrinking supply at auctions helped support price levels. But since then, demand has also been slowing and in the last two years, prices across all formats have fallen 16%.

Joan MIRO was born in Barcelona in 1893 and remained in Spain until 1920, when, two years after his first solo exhibition, he moved to Paris. In the French capital he came into contact with influential artists and writers such as Michel Leiris, Picasso and André Masson.Miró’s art gradually started to shift from detailed realism to geometric representation, but it was only in 1923 that he made a total break with “external reality”. In the 1920s, his backgrounds became monochrome and he started to blend drawing and painting although his universe was still occupied by figurative images. Like the surrealists, Miró’s language was sometimes close to the abstract. But he refused to be considered part of the Abstraction-Création group of artists.
In 1930 he moved into sculpture and held his first US exhibition at the Valentine Gallery, New York. In 1938 he produced a large number of prints at the studios of Roger Lacourière and Stanley W. Hayter. He concentrated exclusively on works on paper during the war years, during which he began the Constellations series. In 1941, the MoMA (New York) held the first retrospective of his work. In 1947 his works were included in the international surrealist exhibition “Surrealism in 1947” at the Maeght Gallery (Paris), which from then on represented the artist in France. Miró increased his production of engravings and lithographs at the Lacourière and Mourlot studios. Back in Spain in the 1950s, he stepped up his production of ceramics and was still producing a large number of ceramic murals as late as the 1970s. Miró died in 1983.

Artworks at auctions

On 6 November 2001, Miró’s auction record was broken when his Portrait of Madame K (1924) went under the hammer for USD 11.5 million at Christie’s New York. This mixed media painting on canvas from the René Gaffé collection is particularly representative of his 1920s works: a brown “stained” almost faded background, intermingled with a lot of symbolism and poetic elements drawn with charcoal, chalk, pastels and sanguine. This type of work from the 1920s is today highly sought after but extremely rare to come by at auction. Only one of the 17 works put up for auction in 2003 dates from this period: “Le Piège” (1924). That said, this work only fetched EUR 2.5 million at the Breton sale, i.e half the high estimate.

Number of transactions 1997-2003weight by media category

Collectors find mainly prints at auction. These account for almost 90% of auction sales. In 2003 just over 400 Miró engravings and lithographs changed hands at public auction. Demand for this medium—which remains affordable to many investors—is particularly strong since Miró’s works generally show very good workmanship. More than half his prints are valued at less than EUR 2,000 and the finest ones go under the hammer at around EUR 5,000-7,000. His most expensive print is Equinoxe (1967), a large-format aquatint from an edition of 75. The first small-format prints from the end of the 1930s do not necessarily attract inflated prices: Astres et danseurs (1938), an engraving in 30 copies was sold for the equivalent of EUR 2,200 at Bukowskis (Stockholm) in November 2003. The least expensive are works produced in the last five years of the artist’s life. Apart from exceptionally large-format works, these often sell for less than EUR 1,000 a piece.

The market places

The artist’s finest works tend to be sold at Sotheby’s and Christie’s in New York, mainly during the “Impressionism & Modern Art” auctions in May and November. The United States therefore accounts for 71% of the artist’s turnover, ahead of the United Kingdom (18%). Occasionally, the London market also puts up some fine pieces, for example Peinture sur fond blanc which was knocked down for GBP 600,000 on 2 February 2004. By lots sold, Germany, Spain, Sweden and France account for 36% of the Miró market, due to the weighting of works on paper.

Buy or sell

Lots sold at auctions

That said, the number of Miró works sold at auction has been continuously falling over the last four years. Between 1999 and 2003, volume sales were down 58%, mainly due to the sharp contraction in the prints market. Until 2001, shrinking supply helped support price levels.

Artprice Indexall media categories, base January 1997 = 100

But since then, demand has also been slowing and in the last two years, prices across all formats have fallen 16%. The paintings segment is suffering particularly sharp declines—prices have fallen by 42% on average since 2000, even for the most sought after works, as shown by the Le Piège sale. The no-sales ratio is currently at a record high: in 2003, 40% of lots were bought in. In today’s climate, collectors seeking to buy Miró works are in a stronger position than sellers.