Skip to main content
Figures and Birds in a Landscape - Image 1
Figures and Birds in a Landscape - Image 2
Figures and Birds in a Landscape - Image 3
Figures and Birds in a Landscape - Image 4

Joan Miró

Figures and Birds in a Landscape

1934

Thumbnail 1
Thumbnail 2
Thumbnail 3
Thumbnail 4
Scroll

Joan Miró

Figures and Birds in a Landscape

1934

Physical Qualities Tempera on Masonite, 10 7/8 x 19 1/2 in. (27.6 x 49.5 cm.)
Credit Line Bequest of Saidie A. May
Object Number 1951.340
Figures and Birds in a Landscape and Personages Attracted by the Forms of a Mountain (on view nearby) are two of twelve small works painted on hard supports, which depict violent and disturbing subject matter. Since they were produced as part of a series between October 1935 and May 1936, it is quite possible they reflect Miró’s apprehension on the eve of the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War. These compositions have been described as “horrific scenes in which figures and landscape elements are subject to oppressive forces.”
The Baltimore Museum of Art by bequest, 1951; The Baltimore Museum of Art on extended loan, 1938-1951; Saidie A. May by purchase, 1938; from Galerie Pierre, Paris.
The Baltimore Museum of Art, "The Saidie A. May Collection of Modern Paintings and Sculpture," March 17-April 16, 1950, cat. 83.

Denver Art Museum, "Ten by Ten," January-February 1954.

"Selections from the May Collection," Washington County Museum of Fine Arts, Hagerstown, Maryland, September 27-October 31, 1957.

Columbus Gallery of Fine Arts, Columbus, Ohio, November 9-December 4, 1967.

The Baltimore Museum of Art, "20th Century European Paintings and Sculpture," July 9- September 23, 1969.

The Baltimore Museum of Art,"Saidie A. May Collection," September 5-October 15, 1972, p. 77, ill. .

Carolyn Lanchner, "Joan Miró," Museum of Modern Art, New York, October 13, 1993-January 18, 1994, no. 132, p. 408, ill. p. 211.

Anne Umland, "Joan Miro: Painting and Anti-Painting/ 1927-1937," Museum of Modern Art, New York, November 2, 2008-January 12, 2009; plate 91, p. 236, ill. p. 190.
Gallatin 1936, ill. n.p. (photograph of Miró in his studio) [cited in MOMA exhibition catalogue, p. 408]
The Baltimore Museum of Art News, “Catalogue of the Saidie A. May Collection of Modern Paintings and Sculpture,” March, 1950, cat. 83, p. 20.
Jacques Dupin, "Joan Miró: Life and Work," London: Thames and Hudson, 1962, no. 419, pp. 285-286; ill. p. 533.
Jacques Dupin, "Joan Miró: catalogue raisonné: paintings," vol. 2, Paris: Daniel Lelong, Successió Miró,1999, no. 505.
Anne Umland, "Joan Miro: Painting and Anti-Painting/ 1927-1937," Museum of Modern Art: New York, 2008, plate 91, ill. p. 190.
Greeley, Robin Adele, Samantha Kavky, Oliver Shell, and Oliver Tostmann. "Monsters & Myths: Surrealism and War in the 1930s and 1940s." New York, NY: Rizzoli Electa in association with The Baltimore Museum of Art and Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, 2018, ill.

Inscribed: FACE: in center of sky, "Miro"; VERSO: "Joan Miro. / Figures et oiseaux dans un paysage / 23/10-8/11/35."

Artist

Joan Miró

1892–1982

born Barcelona, Spain 1893; died Palma, Spain 1983
Meet Joan Miró

Explore the Collection Further

Joan Miró, Pierre Loeb, and others
Plate 6 from the "Série noire et rouge"
1937
Joan Miró
Page Proof from the book "Proof Against All"
1957
Denis-Auguste-Marie Raffet and Auguste Delâtre
Landscape with Figure Seated on a Hillside [top]; Landscape with Figures near a Cross [bottom]
2000
Joan Miró, Louis Marcoussis, and others
Portrait of Miró
1937
Richard Earlom, Claude Lorrain, and others
Landscape with Two Figures and a Dog Walking at the Left, and Three Boats in the Distance
1802
Richard Earlom, Claude Lorrain, and others
Landscape with Two Figures Walking at the Right
1801
Joan Miró
Head (Tête)
1973
Wenceslaus Hollar and Peeter van Avont
Landscape with Figures and Cattle
1626–1676