Calder/ Miro - Hardcover

06/12/04 Evening Standard. 'From Miro to murder and mayhem'. Brian Sewell (Critic of the Year 2004), picks the year's best art books: "The splendid catalogue of an illuminating exhibition in Basel and Washington" "GBP30 - a price that makes a great book a possibility for every christmas stocking." Burlington Magazine: "a stunning array of works... well-researched... one of the most joyous exhibitions in recent memory"

The sculptor Alexander Calder (1898-1976) and the painter Joan Miro (1893-1983) first met in Paris in 1928 and became life-long friends. This original and visually stimulating book, and the exhibition which it accompanies, place the mobile sculptures of Calder alongside the poem paintings of Miro and in doing so provide fresh insights into the visual dialogue between these two artists. What did the painter see in the sculptor? What did the sculptor see in the painter? These questions are answered through an extensive examination of the exchange of artwork and correspondence between the two artists, maintained throughout their lives across two continents despite the difficulties of war. To see Calder in the light of Miro and to see Miro in the light of Calder allows the viewer to appreciate the surreal side of Calder and the constructivist side of Miro. As early as 1936 the New York World Telegram observed, 'Calder's Mobiles are Like Living Miro Abstractions.' In 1961, when Calder and Miro were joined in an exhibition in New York for the first time, John Canaday, writing for the New York Times, declared it, 'just about perfect...[T]heir degree of common ground is emphasized in their