Galerie Surréaliste, Paris
Galerie Le Centaure, Brussels
Pierre Janlet, Brussels
Daniel Varenne, Paris
Private collection, since 1973
Paris, Galerie Surréaliste, Group Exhibition, March 1928
Paris, Galerie Georges Bernheim & Cie, Miró, 1 - 15 May 1928
Brussels, Galerie Le Centaure, 30 Ans de peinture française, 31 May - 30 June 1930
Brussels, Palais des Beaux-Arts, L’Art vivant en Europe, 25 April - 24 May 1931, no. 499
Brussels, Palais des Beaux-Arts, Amsterdam, Stedelijk Museum, Basel, Kunsthalle, Joan Miró, respectively 6 January - 7 February 1956, 10 February - 14 March 1956, no. 26, ill., and 24 March - 29 April 1956, no. 17
Brussels, Palais International des Beaux-Arts, 50 Ans d’art moderne: Exposition universelle et internationale de Bruxelles, 17 April - 21 June 1958, no. 221, ill. p. 115
Paris, Musée National d’Art Moderne, L’École de Paris dans les collections belges, 9 July - 18 October 1959, no. no. 108, ill. 18
Paris, Musée National d’Art Moderne, Joan Miró, June - November 1962, no. 40
London, The Tate Gallery, Joan Miró, 27 August - 11 October 1964, no. 63, p. 29, ill. 12c
Tokyo, National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto, National Museum of Modern Art, Joan Miró Exhibition, Japan 1966, respectively 26 August - 9 October 1966 and 20 October - 30 November 1966, no. 30, ill. p. 47
Brussels, Palais des Beaux-Arts, Six Surréalistes, 1967
Turin, Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna, Le Muse inquietanti: Maestri del surrealismo, November 1967 - January 1968, no. 254, ill. p. 186
Recklinghausen, Städtische Kunsthalle, Reich des Phantastischen, Ruhrfestspiele 1968
Munich, Haus der Kunst, Joan Miró, 15 March - 11 May 1969, no. 29, ill.
Knokke, Casino Communal, Joan Miró, 26 June - 29 August 1971, no. 12, ill. p. 30
Munich, Haus der Kunst, Paris, Musée des Arts Decoratifs, Der Surrealismus, 1922-1942, respectively 11 March - 7 May 1972, no. 327, and 9 June - 24 September 1972, no. 312, ill.
New York, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Joan Miró: Magnetic Fields, 27 October 1972 - 21 January 1973, no. 24, pp. 110-111, 122, 128, ill. p. 111
Paris, Grand Palais, Miro à Paris, 18 May - 13 October 1974, no. IV
Barcelona, Fudació Joan Miró, Joan Miró: 1893-1993, 20 April - 30 April 1993, no. 77, ill. 229
New York, Museum of Modern Art, Joan Miró, 17 October 1993 - 11 January 1994, no. 57, ill. p. 153
Martigny, Fondation Gianadda, Miró, 6 June - 11 November 1997, no. 14, ill. p. 49
Andros, Museum of Contemporary Art, Basil and Elise Goulandris Foundation, Classics of Modern Art, 27 June - 19 September 1999, pp. 112-115, ill. p. 113
Andros, Museum of Contemporary Art, Basil and Elise Goulandris Foundation, Joan Miró, In the Orbit of the Imaginary, 23 June - 22 September 2002, no. 52, ill.
Paris, Centre Georges Pompidou-Musée National d’Art Moderne, Joan Miró 1917-1934, La naissance du monde, 3 March - 28 June 2004
Bilbao, Guggenheim Museum, Joan Miró. Absolute Reality. Paris, 1920–1945, 10 February - 28 May 2023
La Révolution surréaliste, vol. 4, no. 11, 15 March 1928, illustrated on the cover
Sebastia Gasch, “Arte: Joan Miró”, L’Amie de les arts, vol. 3, no. 26, 30 June 1928, ill. p. 203
E. Tériade, “Documentaire sur la jeune peinture, I: Considérations Liminaires”, Cahiers d’art, vol. 4, no. 8-9, 1929, ill. p. 364
Cahiers d’art, vol. 9, no. 1-4, 1934 (special issue on Miró), ill. 19, p. 37
Jean Cassou, “Le Dadaïsme et le Surréalism”, L’Amour de l’art, vol. 15, March 1934, ill. 446, p. 339
Jacques Prévert and Georges Ribemont-Dessaignes, Joan Miró, Maeght, Paris, 1956, ill. p. 114
Eduard Huttinger, Miró, Alfred Scherz Verlag, Berne, Stuttgart, Vienna, 1957, ill. 14
Walter Erben, Joan Miró, Braziller, New York, 1959, ill. 51
Yvon Taillandier, “Miró précurseur”, XXe siècle, vol. 24, no. 19, June 1962, ill. p. 41
Jacques Dupin, Joan Miró. Life and Works, Abrams, New York, 1962, p. 178, no. 176, ill. p. 514
Gaetan Picon, Joan Miró: Carnets catalans, Skira, Geneva, 1976, vol. I, pp. 78-79, ill. p. 79
Margit Rowell, Joan Miró: Peinture-Poésie, Éditions de la Différence, Paris, 1976, ill. p. 144
Jacques Dupin, “Joan Miró et la réalité catalane”, Picasso, Miró, Dalí. Évocations d’Espagne, Europalia, Brussels, 1985, ill. p. 53
Blandine Bouret, Joan Miró, Musée d’Art Moderne, Villeneuve d’Ascq, 1986
Georges Raillard, Miró, Bracken Books, London, 1989, p. 84
For Miró, the two-year period between 1926 and 1927 was a milestone in the redevelopment of the landscape. He splitted his time between Paris and Montroig at the family home on the coast of Catalonia. The region with its dry vegetation and vast horizons gave him the opportunity to apply his new philosophy of painting to the subject of the landscape, integrating in his work the senses and memories associated with one place - while at the same time he avoided painting on canvas any subject that might seem realistic to someone else’s eyes. The fourteen paintings he carried out there, belong to the most important production of the so-called “dream” period. The grasshopper is the first work of this set.
Contrary to what the simple structure and the impression of spontaneity The grasshopper gives, it is the result of a long process of reflection and preparation. Here, we see an imaginary creature, which we identify as a grasshopper through the proof by contradiction. From its mouth, a thin and damp smoke comes out, and it abandons a landscape where the calm sea flays volcanoes for a planet where volcanoes are still active and separated by a mysterious ladder. On the horizon, we see a crescent moon setting and flags reminiscent of traditional beach resort facilities. On the coastline, Miró has seeded the letters of his name as a riddle, however they are placed in the correct order. He uses sometimes typographic and others handwritten characters, until completely imaginary ones, such as the deformed M that literally dominates the entire lower right surface. The date is equally distinct, as an integral part of the whole. These usual details of a work - the signature and the date - rather than being cramped in the corners of the canvas, have been placed on the foreground with colours contrasting the background, as elements of a composition equal to grasshoppers or volcanoes. It is interesting to point out that the only distinct outlines are theirs, while the other shapes are only implicitly defined by colour changes.
With the supremacy of yellow, abolished by white and the two thin blue lines, Miró might want to underline the power of the Mediterranean sun, which with its glaring rays makes all colours, except sea blue and white lime, seem faded. Moreover, by using colour - white for the planet of volcanoes and the Earth, yellow for the sky and for the Earth as well – he makes a contemplated comparison between two worlds that ultimately look like more than one could imagine.
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