Joan Mir - Anne Umland

Taking Joan Mirs notorious declaration of 1927 I want to assassinate painting as its point of departure, this richly illustrated volume is the first to focus on Mir the anti-painter. Joan Mir: Painting and Anti-Painting 19271937 surveys the various material, iconographical and rhetorical forms of Mirs attacks on painting by presenting, in chronological sequence, twelve distinct series of works, beginning with a remarkable group of paintings on unprimed canvas and concluding with Mirs return to realism in Still Life with Old Shoe. Acidic colour, grotesque disfigurement, stylistic heterogeneity, and the use of resistant, ready-made materials are among the key tactics of aggression that are explored in this extraordinary presentation of the interrelated and oppositional series of paintings, collages, objects and drawings Mir produced during this crucial decade of his long career. This volume integrates close scrutiny of Mirs materials and processes with historical and iconographic analysis, leading to an expanded understanding of the underappreciated aggressiveness of an artist long regarded as Surrealisms most lyrical painter-poet.