All sales are subject to 888 Auctions’ Terms and Conditions of Sale. Bidding is available by live in-house bidding and absentee. A 20% buyer's premium is added to the hammer price of each lot. PAYMENT BY, BANK DRAFT, CERTIFIED CHEQUE OR WIRE TRANSFER ONLY. The auctioneer and 888 Auctions shall have the right to withdraw any item at any time for any reason and to default any sale in the event of an error or dispute. The auctioneer will also have full discretion to reopen the bidding, cancel the sale or re-offer and resell the property. Should a dispute arise after the auction, our sale record is conclusive.
Oil on canvas; surrealist painting; signed and attr. Joan Miro (Spain, 1893-1983); 14 x 18 3/4 inch (35.56 x 47.63 cm). Joan Miró rejected the constraints of traditional painting, creating works “conceived with fire in the soul but executed with clinical coolness,” as he once said. Widely considered one of the leading Surrealists, though never officially part of the group, Miró pioneered a wandering linear style of Automatism—a method of “random” drawing that attempted to express the inner workings of the human psyche. Miró used color and form in a symbolic rather than literal manner, his intricate compositions combining abstract elements with recurring motifs like birds, eyes, and the moon. “I try to apply colors like words that shape poems, like notes that shape music,” he said. While he prized artistic freedom, Miró revered art history, basing a series of works on the Dutch Baroque interiors of Hendrick Sorgh and Jan Steen. In turn, Miró has inspired many artists—significantly Arshile Gorky, whose bold linear abstractions proved a foundational influence on Abstract Expressionism. PROVENANCE: Southern Ontario Estate