{"data":{"id":77615,"api_model":"artworks","api_link":"https:\/\/api.artic.edu\/api\/v1\/artworks\/77615","is_boosted":false,"title":"Painting (Figures with Stars)","alt_titles":null,"thumbnail":{"lqip":"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhBgAFAPQAAFQnHEosJ106NmQ8MnYyN3c2O3M8Png4PVtJPndXNXdDRnRZQHFeTXZVW01Wb11eYmx2eYVdOoo9QZxBTIJRU4BZUaNGT4BkQIprXYdneJN5cXR9lJOPj6aamgAAAAAAACH5BAAAAAAALAAAAAAGAAUAAAUYIHEYy4VIhRIljDVRWoVlDdcNwvZATgCEADs=","width":2794,"height":2250,"alt_text":"Five stick-like figures in black and white with orange highlights float against a colorful background, four stars in the left corner."},"main_reference_number":"1952.512","has_not_been_viewed_much":false,"boost_rank":null,"date_start":1933,"date_end":1933,"date_display":"1933","date_qualifier_title":"","date_qualifier_id":null,"artist_display":"Joan Mir\u00f3\nSpanish, 1893\u20131983","place_of_origin":"Spain","description":"<p>The \"personages\" we see here\u2014organic figures with tiny heads, disjointed appendages, and schematic breasts\u2014reflect the experimentation across media for which Joan Mir\u00f3 is best known. First in his Barcelona studio in 1933, the artist made a series of small paper collages from precisely rendered engravings of household and mechanical objects. Then, he translated these compositions into large abstract paintings, with multicolored, amorphous forms rendered in silhouette. Inspired by this series, Mir\u00f3 derived <em>Paintings (Figures with Stars)<\/em> as a cartoon, or full-scale preparatory work, for a tapestry commissioned by French art collector and gallery director Marie Cuttoli, effecting yet another material transformation of his original design from collage to painting to textile.<\/p>\n","short_description":"In the 1930s, the Surrealist movement grew beyond its avant-garde origins and extended into the mainstream realms of theater and design. Mir\u00f3 embraced this as an opportunity for new creative possibilities. This painting is one of four cartoons for tapestries commissioned in 1933 by the French art collector and gallery director Marie Cuttoli. Two designs, including this one, were made into tapestries at the famous French Aubusson tapestry works.","dimensions":"198.1 \u00d7 246.4 cm (78 \u00d7 97 in.)","dimensions_detail":[{"depth":null,"width":246,"height":198,"diameter":null,"clarification":null}],"medium_display":"Oil on canvas","inscriptions":"Inscribed on verso, c.: \"Joan Mir\u00f3\"","credit_line":"Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Maurice E. Culberg","catalogue_display":null,"publication_history":"William S. Lieberman, \u201cModern French Tapestries,\u201d The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, New Series, vol. 6, no. 5 (Jan. 1948), pp. 142-43.\n\nPossibly Joan Mir\u00f3, exh. cat. (New York: Pierre Matisse Gallery, 1952), cat. 1. \n\nPossibly Howard Devree, \u201cExtending Horizons: Kirchner and Expressionism\u2014Joan Mir\u00f3\u2014C\u00e9zanne Exhibition a Great Success,\u201d New York Times (April 20, 1952), p. X9.\n\nPossibly James Fitzsimmons, \u201cAll Sorts of Wonderful Events,\u201d Art Digest 26, 15 (May 1, 1952), p. 16.\n\nPossibly Charles Z. Offin, \u201cGallery Previews in New York,\u201d Pictures on Exhibit 14, 7 (May 1952), p. 15 (ill.).\n\nIl Messaggero di Roma (July 22, 1952), ill. \n\nArt Institute of Chicago Quarterly, 46, 4 (November 15, 1952), p. 68 (ill.). \n\n\u201cCulberg\u2019s Contemporaries,\u201d Life (October 27, 1952), p. 481 (color ill.).\n\nPaintings in the Art Institute of Chicago: A Catalogue of the Picture Collection (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 1961), p. 314.\n\nJacques Dupin, Mir\u00f3, trans. Norbert Guterman (New York: H.N. Abrams, 1962), pp. 255-56, 529 (ill. 367).\n\nA. James Speyer, \u201cTwentieth-Century European Paintings and Sculpture,\u201d Apollo 84, 55 (September 1966), p. 225.\n\nInstituto de arte de Chicago: Presentaci\u00f3n de Charles C. Cunningham (Buenos Aires: Editorial Codex, S.A., 1967), pp. 15, no. 73 (ill.), 79 (color ill.).\n\nLouise Averill Svendsen, \u201cComposition, 1933,\u201d The Evelyn Sharp Collection (New York: Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, 1978), p. 52.\n\nA. James Speyer and Courtney Graham Donnell, Twentieth Century European Painting (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980), p. 56, no. 2G8.\n\nCarolyn Lanchner, Joan Mir\u00f3, exh. cat. (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1993), cat. 112 (color ill.).\n\nThomas Buser, Experiencing Art Around Us (Minneapolis\/St. Paul: West Publishing Company, 1995), p. 106, fig. 4-25 (color ill.).\n\nWilliam Fleming, Arts & Ideas, 9th ed. (New York: Harcourt Brace College Publishers, 1995), pp. 609-10, pl. 21.6 (color ill.).\n\nWerner Spies, La R\u00e9volution Surrealiste, exh. cat. (Paris: Centre Pompidou, 2002), 229 (color ill.), 439.","exhibition_history":"Possibly New York, Pierre Matisse Gallery, Joan Mir\u00f3, Apr. 15-May 17, 1952, cat. 1, as Painting. \n\nNew York, Museum of Modern Art, Joan Mir\u00f3, Oct. 17, 1993-Jan. 11, 1994, cat. 112. \n\nParis, Centre Georges Pompidou, La Revolution Surrealiste, Feb. 27\u2013 June 24, 2002, no cat. no.; traveled to: Dusseldorf, Kunstsammlung Nordhein-Westfahlen, July 20\u2013Nov. 24, 2002, as Personnages avec \u00e9toiles.\n\nSouth Kensington, Victoria and Albert Museum, Surreal Things: Design and Decorative Arts, Mar. 29, 2007\u2014July 22, 2007; Rotterdam, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Oct. 2007 1\u2014Jan. 1, 2008.\n\nFort Worth, Kimbell Art Museum,\u00a0The Age of Picasso and Matisse: Modern Masters from the Art Institute of Chicago, Oct.\u00a06, 2013\u2013Feb.\u00a016, 2014, no cat.\u00a0no.\u00a0\n\nPhiladelphia, The Barnes Foundation, Marie Cuttoli: The Modern Thread from Mir\u00f3 to Man Ray, Feb. 23, 2020\u2013May 10, 2020.","provenance_text":"The artist; commissioned by Marie Cuttoli, Paris, 1933 [commissioned as a tapestry design to be executed by a workshop in Aubusson, France for sale in her Paris gallery; New York 1993, London 2007]; returned to the artist for re-touching, by Dec. 14, 1951 [letter from Aim\u00e9 Maeght to Pierre Matisse, Dec. 14, 1951, Pierre Matisse Gallery Archives, The Morgan Library & Museum; letter from Pierre Matisse to Courtney Donnell, Oct. 26, 1976; copies in curatorial object file]; sold to Pierre Matisse Gallery, New York, by Mar. 1952 [Aim\u00e9 Maeght facilitated this sale, according to letter from Aim\u00e9 Maeght to Pierre Matisse, Feb. 15, 1952, Pierre Matisse Gallery Archives, The Morgan Library & Museum; copy in curatorial file]; sold to Mr. and Mrs. Maurice E. Culberg, Chicago, by Oct. 27, 1952 [\u201cCulberg\u2019s Contemporaries,\u201d 1952]; given to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1952.","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":51.3387,"color":{"h":35,"l":41,"s":93,"percentage":0.025157364556418017,"population":144},"latitude":null,"longitude":null,"latlon":null,"is_on_view":true,"on_loan_display":null,"gallery_title":"Gallery 398","gallery_id":25479,"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":["painting","black (color)","modern and contemporary art","abstract shapes","abstract figures","blue (color)","red (color)","white (color)"],"style_id":null,"style_title":null,"alt_style_ids":[],"style_ids":[],"style_titles":[],"classification_id":"TM-9","classification_title":"painting","alt_classification_ids":["TM-155"],"classification_ids":["TM-9","TM-155"],"classification_titles":["painting","modern and contemporary art"],"subject_id":"TM-11845","alt_subject_ids":["TM-12708","TM-12688","TM-11843","TM-11851","TM-11841"],"subject_ids":["TM-11845","TM-12708","TM-12688","TM-11843","TM-11851","TM-11841"],"subject_titles":["black (color)","abstract shapes","abstract figures","blue (color)","red (color)","white (color)"],"material_id":null,"alt_material_ids":[],"material_ids":[],"material_titles":[],"technique_id":null,"alt_technique_ids":[],"technique_ids":[],"technique_titles":[],"theme_titles":[],"image_id":"7bd4542d-3e84-e21a-d259-8d22e20bee0a","alt_image_ids":[],"document_ids":[],"sound_ids":[],"video_ids":[],"text_ids":[],"section_ids":[],"section_titles":[],"site_ids":[],"suggest_autocomplete_all":[{"input":["1952.512"],"contexts":{"groupings":["accession"]}},{"input":["Painting (Figures with Stars)"],"weight":7269,"contexts":{"groupings":["title"]}}],"source_updated_at":"2026-08-25T15:34:27-05:00","updated_at":"2026-09-02T15:22:05-05:00","timestamp":"2026-09-07T05:05:32-05:00"},"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. 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