Joan Miró: Bird (À toute épreuve). 1958. Color woodcut on thick wove paper by Arches, 32.7 x 25 cm (sheet). Trial proof "avant la lettre" for the frontispiece to the artist's book "À toute épreuve" with poems by Paul Éluard and color woodcuts by Joan Miró. Total edition of 130 copies. Miró himself and Enric Tormo cut the 233 plates for the 80 color woodcuts contained in the book based on Miró's watercolor designs. The woodcuts were printed by Jacques Frélaut and Jaime Herrera, Atelier Lacourière et Frélaut, Paris. Edited by Gérald Cramer, Geneva. Reference: Dupin 164; Christopher Green: Paul Éluard and Joan Miró. À toute épreuve. More than a book. Miró Documents 2017; The artist & the book 209. Provenance: Ex collection Lawrence Saphire (= author of the catalog raisonnés of the prints by André Masson and Fernand Léger).
It should be noted that this print is a genuine, rare trial proof with the typical inaccuracies, such as color plates that do not print one hundred percent exactly on top of each other, color traces, etc. on exactly the same paper that was also used for the book, namely "vélin pur chiffon à la forme des papeteries d'Arches" - Arches-Velin paper for short. The suites for the special editions were printed on China paper or Japon nacré. In addition to the book edition, 30 copies of 4 woodcuts were printed on "papier d'Auvergne" with wide margins and signed by Miró.
As Anne Hyde Greet noted in her accompanying text to the 1984 facsimile edition of the book, Miró "transformed" the frontispiece illustration, which contained the text "Gravures sur bois de JOAN MIRÓ" in the finished book, "into what amounts to a title page for the painter. A bird of all colors beneath a yellow star runs away from the page's information... The image of the bird expresses the carefree and childlike mood of joy one thinks of as part of Miró's persona..."
