Plate (page 11) from Parler seul (Speaking Alone)
Joan Miró
Spanish, 1893–1983
1948–50, published 1950
A lithograph plate from Joan Miró’s Parler seul in which the artist translates a poem into playful, pictographic brushstrokes and bright biomorphic shapes.
The left page pairs a neat column of French verse with a broad, black, calligraphic sweep, while the right bursts with flat, primary-colored blobs and jagged, letter‑like marks that feel like an invented alphabet.
As part of Miró’s artist’s books, it reduces painting to signs and gestures—bringing Surrealist automatism into printed form and helping to shape the modern vocabulary of abstraction and graphic design.
Medium
Lithograph from an illustrated book with seventy-two lithographs (including variants on folder and slipcase) and one lithographed collage (wrapper front)
Dimensions
composition (irreg.): 13 1/2 × 8 7/8" (34.3 × 22.6 cm); page: 14 7/8 × 10 7/8" (37.8 × 27.7 cm)
Classification
Department
Credit
The Louis E. Stern Collection
Accession
939.1964.4
Palette
Art Terms
Exhibitions
