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  Barcelona & Modernity > About the Exhibition > Exhibition Highlights > Joan Miró
Still Life with Old Shoe, 1937
 
 
Image of Joan Miró<br><I>Still Life with Old Shoe, </I>1937 <br>Oil on canvas <br>81.3 x 116.8 cm <br>The Museum of Modern Art, New York, Gift of James Thrall Soby, 1969. <br>Digital Image © The Museum of Modern Art/Licensed by SCALA/Art Resource, NY. <br>© 2006 Successió Miró / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris
Joan Miró
Still Life with Old Shoe, 1937
Oil on canvas
81.3 x 116.8 cm
The Museum of Modern Art, New York, Gift of James Thrall Soby, 1969.
Digital Image © The Museum of Modern Art/Licensed by SCALA/Art Resource, NY.
© 2006 Successió Miró / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris
Joan Miró
Still Life with Old Shoe, 1937

"We are living through a terrible drama,” Miró wrote in January 1937. “Everything happening in Spain is terrifying in a way you could never imagine.”

He responded to the civil war with this painting of humble objects set in a claustrophobic landscape of eerie colors and ominous black clouds. After painting abstract compositions filled with mysterious glyphs and symbols, he returned here to a more representational style, but not one that was sentimental or photographic. With a nod to Vincent van Gogh's famous souliers (shoes), Miró employed rural imagery to represent the land and people of his native country, a nation besieged by conflict and death.

Page 16 of 21 | On the next page: Joan Miró
Aidez lEspagne, 1937