{"data":{"id":5375,"api_model":"artworks","api_link":"https:\/\/api.artic.edu\/api\/v1\/artworks\/5375","is_boosted":false,"title":"Portrait of Joaneta Obrador","alt_titles":null,"thumbnail":{"lqip":"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhBAAFAPQAAG9nW3ZrXXZsX31xV25tYXpvY3JwZ3JxaJJwXJV3XYZ8a7N5YZeIdbWEcK+SdLiUc8SRdtCTeduWeeWliAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACH5BAAAAAAALAAAAAAEAAUAAAURYJQ40zI8UqMwUHAYBUIIQAgAOw==","width":5995,"height":6750,"alt_text":"Portrait of woman in black and white stripped dress against floral wallpaper."},"main_reference_number":"1957.78","has_not_been_viewed_much":false,"boost_rank":null,"date_start":1918,"date_end":1918,"date_display":"1918","date_qualifier_title":"","date_qualifier_id":null,"artist_display":"Joan Mir\u00f3\nSpanish, 1893\u20131983","place_of_origin":"Spain","description":"

This painting belongs to a group of fascinating and highly individual works by Joan Mir\u00f3 that document his early efforts to grapple with revolutionary developments in modern art (such as Fauvism and Cubism) and to forge his own direction. These efforts culminated in the early 1920s in the artist's breakthrough to a style of fantastic, simplified forms, freely and loosely scattered across the surface of his pictures with an exuberant abandon that is hard to imagine based on this tightly constructed portrait. And yet, something of this exuberance\u2014of the vitality and poetic intensity of Mir\u00f3\u2018s later works\u2014seems indeed to underly this strangely powerful portrait, manifesting itself, for example, in the unrestrained rhythms of the dress, barely held in check by the diamond grid in the background, or in the lyrical note introduced by the small flower on the front of the dress.
Different and often contrasting impulses are brought here into uneasy balance through the sheer force of Mir\u00f3's talent for creating compelling simplifications of the forms before him. The strong rhythms established by the dress, wallpaper, and face all vie for attention, as do the artist's various sources of inspiration: the influence of the Fauves and especially of Henri Matisse<\/a> in the bold use of color, dense application of paint, and flat patterning of the dress and background; the effect of Cubism in the far more sculptural, angular treatment of the face; and the impact of the Romanesque frescoes of Mir\u00f3's native Catalonia (which the artist himself acknowledged as a major inspiration) in the linear rhythms of the dress, hair, and background, in the frontal pose, and in the large, staring eyes. This is a painting of dramatic contrasts, between the insistent flatness of the dress and back-ground and the Cubist modeling of the face, between the startling pink of the wallpaper and the restrained black-and-white color scheme of the dress, between the human presence of the sitter and the strong linear patterns that threaten to engulf it. It does not seem surprising, given the impact this portrait still has today, that the young woman who initially agreed to sit for it became frightened both by Mir\u00f3's intensity and his strange style of painting, forcing him to finish the portrait from memory.<\/p>\n

\u2014Entry, Margherita Andreotti, Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies<\/em>, Vol. 20, No. 2, The Joseph Winterbotham Collection at The Art Institute of Chicago (1994), p. 152-153.<\/p>\n

This is one of thirty-five works that comprise the Winterbotham Collection. Click here to learn more about the collection.<\/a><\/p>\n","short_description":"This painting belongs to a group of works by Mir\u00f3 that document his early efforts to grapple with developments in modern art (such as Fauvism and Cubism) and to forge his own direction. The vital and poetic intensity of his later works can be glimpsed here\u2014for example, in the rhythms of the dress, barely held in check by the diamond grid in the background, or in the lyrical note introduced by the small flower on the front of the dress.","dimensions":"69.5 \u00d7 62 cm (27 3\/8 \u00d7 24 3\/8 in.)","dimensions_detail":[{"depth":null,"width":62,"height":69,"diameter":null,"clarification":null}],"medium_display":"Oil on canvas","inscriptions":"Signed and dated lower left: Miro\/1918","credit_line":"Joseph Winterbotham Collection","catalogue_display":null,"publication_history":"Joseph Fontales R\u00e1fols, \"Mir\u00f3 antes de \u2018La Masia\u2019\" Anales y bolet\u00edn de los museos de arte de Barcelona, vol. 6, no. 3\u20134 (July-December 1948): 497\u2013502, ill. n.p. \n\nJacques Revert and Georges Ribemont-Dessaignes, Joan Mir\u00f3 (Paris, 1956), ill. opp. p. 109.\n\n\"Accessions of American and Canadian Museums,\" Art Quarterly XX (Autumn 1957), p. 326 (ill.), fig. 3.\n\nEduard H\u00fcttinger, Mir\u00f3 (Bern, 1957), pp. 10\u201311, fig. 5.\n\nThe Art Institute of Chicago, Paintings in the Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago, 1961), pp. 314, 430 (ill.).\n\nJacques Dupin, Joan Mir\u00f3: Life and Work, trans. By Norbert Guterman (New York, 1962), pp. 80, 81, 505, fig. 53.\n\nJacques Lassaigne, Mir\u00f3, trans. Stuart Gilbert (Geneva, 1963), pp. 21, 23 (ill.).\n\nYves Bonnefoy, Mir\u00f3 (Milan, 1964), p. 8, fig. 5.\n\nA. James Speyer, \"Twentieth-Century European Paintings and Sculpture,\"Apollo 84 (September 1966), p. 225.\n\nMario Bucci, Joan Mir\u00f3: I Meastri del Novecento (Florence and Paris, 1968), pp. 16\u201317, fig. 9.\n\nJuan Perucho, Joan Mir\u00f3 and Catalonia (New York, 1968), p. 50, fig. 26.\n\nJohn Maxon, The Art Institute of Chicago (New York, 1970), p. 271 (ill.).\n\nMichel Chilo, Mir\u00f3: L\u2019Artiste et l\u2019Oeuvre, Archives Maeght 2 (Paris, 1971), pl. 29.\n\nA. James Speyer and Courtney Graham Donnell, Twentieth-Century European Paintings (Chicago, 1980), p. 56, 2G7.","exhibition_history":"Brussels, Palais des Beaux-Arts, Joan Mir\u00f3, January\u2013February 1956, no. 5, n.p. (ill.); traveled to Amsterdam, Stedelijk Museum, February\u2013March 1956, as Portrait \u00e1 la tapisserie. \n\nBasel, Kunsthalle Basel, Joan Mir\u00f3 March 24\u2013April 29, 1956, no. 5, as Portrait \u00e1 la tapisserie. \n\nSaint-Paul de Vence, Fondation Maeght, Mir\u00f3, July 16\u2013September 30, 1968, no. 5.\n\nNew York, Acquavella Galleries, Joan Mir\u00f3, October 18\u2013November 18, 1972, no. 5.\n\nParis, Grand Palais, Joan Mir\u00f3, May 17\u2013October 13, 1974, no. 4.\n\nWashington, D.C., Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Mir\u00f3: Selected Paintings , March 20\u2013June 8, 1980; traveled to Buffalo, Albright-Knox Art Gallery, June 27\u2013August 17, 1980.\n\nZurich, Kunsthaus, Joan Mir\u00f3, November 21, 1986-February 1, 1987; traveled to Dusseldorf, Kunsthalle, February 14-April 20, 1987 and New York, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, May 15-August 23, 1987.\n\nBarcelona, Fundaci\u00f3 Joan Mir\u00f3, Joan Mir\u00f3: 1893\u20131993, April 20\u2013August 30, 1993, no. 31.","provenance_text":"Aim\u00e9 Maeght (Galerie Maeght), Paris, acquired directly from the artist by March 1956 [letter April 12, 2003 from Kunsthalle Basel and letter July 15, 2003 from Association pour la d\u00e9fense de l\u2019oeuvre de Joan Mir\u00f3, in curatorial file]; sold to an unnamed Paris dealer [letter October 26, 1976 from Pierre Matisse Gallery, in curatorial file]; sold to Pierre Matisse Gallery, New York, by 1957 [letter October 26, 1976 mentioned above]; sold to the Art Institute through Joseph Winterbotham Collection funds, 1957.","edition":null,"publishing_verification_level":"Web Cataloged","internal_department_id":246,"fiscal_year":null,"fiscal_year_deaccession":null,"is_public_domain":false,"is_zoomable":true,"max_zoom_window_size":1280,"copyright_notice":"\u00a9 2018 Successi\u00f3 Mir\u00f3 \/ Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York \/ ADAGP, Paris","has_multimedia_resources":false,"has_educational_resources":false,"has_advanced_imaging":false,"colorfulness":52.5326,"color":{"h":8,"l":52,"s":74,"percentage":0.0008749923438169915,"population":7},"latitude":null,"longitude":null,"latlon":null,"is_on_view":true,"on_loan_display":null,"gallery_title":"Gallery 394","gallery_id":23992,"nomisma_id":null,"artwork_type_title":"Painting","artwork_type_id":1,"department_title":"Modern Art","department_id":"PC-11","artist_id":32048,"artist_title":"Joan Mir\u00f3","alt_artist_ids":[],"artist_ids":[32048],"artist_titles":["Joan Mir\u00f3"],"category_ids":["PC-11"],"category_titles":["Modern Art"],"term_titles":["oil on canvas","women","painting","modern and contemporary art","flowers","plant-derived motif","floral motifs","portraits","fashion","Joseph Winterbotham Collection"],"style_id":null,"style_title":null,"alt_style_ids":[],"style_ids":[],"style_titles":[],"classification_id":"TM-66","classification_title":"oil on canvas","alt_classification_ids":["TM-9","TM-155"],"classification_ids":["TM-66","TM-9","TM-155"],"classification_titles":["oil on canvas","painting","modern and contemporary art"],"subject_id":"TM-8735","alt_subject_ids":["TM-10482","TM-11839","TM-12631","TM-8658","TM-8663","TM-14413"],"subject_ids":["TM-8735","TM-10482","TM-11839","TM-12631","TM-8658","TM-8663","TM-14413"],"subject_titles":["women","flowers","plant-derived motif","floral motifs","portraits","fashion","Joseph Winterbotham Collection"],"material_id":null,"alt_material_ids":[],"material_ids":[],"material_titles":[],"technique_id":null,"alt_technique_ids":[],"technique_ids":[],"technique_titles":[],"theme_titles":[],"image_id":"2d27889c-11ea-1dac-0682-9c48760a19b6","alt_image_ids":[],"document_ids":[],"sound_ids":[],"video_ids":[],"text_ids":[],"section_ids":[],"section_titles":[],"site_ids":[],"suggest_autocomplete_all":[{"input":["1957.78"],"contexts":{"groupings":["accession"]}},{"input":["Portrait of Joaneta Obrador"],"weight":4997,"contexts":{"groupings":["title"]}}],"source_updated_at":"2026-07-14T15:41:08-05:00","updated_at":"2026-09-02T15:21:54-05:00","timestamp":"2026-09-07T05:05:20-05:00"},"info":{"license_text":"The `description` field in this response is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Generic License (CC-By) and the Terms and Conditions of artic.edu. All other data in this response is licensed under a Creative Commons Zero (CC0) 1.0 designation and the Terms and Conditions of artic.edu.","license_links":["https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/publicdomain\/zero\/1.0\/","https:\/\/www.artic.edu\/terms"],"version":"1.15"},"config":{"iiif_url":"https:\/\/www.artic.edu\/iiif\/2","website_url":"http:\/\/www.artic.edu"}}