Ready for Anything

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Ready for Anything

Artist Joan Miró (Spanish, 1893-1983)

Publisher Gérald Cramer, Geneva, 1958

Printer text: Fequet and Baudier, Paris, woodcuts: Atelier Lacourière and Frélaut, Paris (Jacques Frélaut, Jamie Herrera), typography: Fon

Author Paul Éluard (French, 1895-1952)

Date1958

Dimensionsbox: 13 11/16 x 10 5/8 x 3 1/8 in. (347 x 270 x 80 mm);
chemise: 14 7/16 x 10 1/2 x 2 11/16 in. (366 x 266 x 69 mm);
book: 13 1/8 x 10 1/4 in. (334 x 261 mm);
page: 12 11/16 x 10 1/16 in. (322 x 256 mm)
Portfolio: H: 13 1/8 (334 mm); W: 10 1/4 in. (261 mm); Depth: 7/8 in. (23 mm).

Mediumbook with woodcuts, collagraph, and collage

ClassificationBooks

Credit LineGift of Molly and Walter Bareiss

Object number

1984.783

Not on View

DescriptionBook with 80 woodcuts, some with collagraph, some with collage, plus and additional suite of 80 woodcuts.

Label TextRegarded as "one of the most triumphant feats of book illustration in over a century,” À toute épreuve required dedication and time to produce. Miró spent 10 years creating the 233 woodblocks for the illustrations (combined to make 79 images) to accompany Paul Éluard's poetry. From the final stages of the project in the late 1940s, there were myriad considerations which publisher Gérard Cramer, Miró, and Éluard (until his death in 1952) carefully worked out together: the type size, the color if ink, and the layout on each double-page spread. In À toute épreuve (loosely translated "Ready for anything"), each page presents a delightfully imaginative intermingling of words and image. The text has explores themes of love, creation, and the narrator's fluctuating moods, which run the gamut from happiness to despair and isolation. Miró used Éluard's words as a springboard to a pictorial realm of captivating forms.Published ReferencesToledo Museum of Art, Toledo Museum of Art Masterworks, Toledo, 2009, p. 321, repr. (col.).Exhibition HistoryToledo, The Toledo Museum of Art, The Bareiss Collection of Illustrated Books from Toulouse-Lautrec to Kiefer, 1985, no. 52

Toledo, Toledo Museum of Art, Modern Woodcuts, May 5 - July 24, 2000. (Pages shown: 10, 11, 16, 17, 23, 30, 31, 36, 37, 39, 53, 56, 58.)

Toledo, Toledo Museum of Art, Magical Miró: Books and Prints from the Bareiss Collection, Feb. 14-May 11, 2003.,p> Toledo, Toledo Museum of Art, Looks Good on Paper: Masterworks and Favorites, Oct. 10, 2014-Jan. 11, 2015.

Comparative ReferencesSee also Castleman, Riva, A Century of Artists Books, New York, 1994, pp. 100-101, 3 reprs. (1 col.)

See also Garvey, Eleanor M., The Artist & the Book, 1860-1960, Boston, 1961, no. 209

See also Strachan, W. J., The Artist and the Book in France; The 20th Century livre d'artiste, New York, 1969, p. 168

See also Hogben, Carol, Rowan Watson, editors, From Manet to Hockney: Modern Artists’ Illustrated Books, London, 1985, no. 121, reprs.

See also Cramer, Patrick, ed., Joan Miró, The Illustrated Books: Catalogue Raisonné, Geneva, 1989, no. 61, col. repr.

See also Johnson, Robert Flynn, Artists' Books in the Modern Era 1870-2000: The Reva and David Logan Collection of Illustrated Books, San Francisco, 2001, no. 139