Peinture-poème (Musique, Seine, Michel, Bataille et moi)
In the summer of 2022, a long-held wish of Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen wasfulfilled. The museum had been searching for an early painting by Spanish surrealistartist Joan Miró for decades. With support from various funds and donors, the museumwas able to add the 1927 painting Peinture-poème (Musique, Seine, Michel, Bataille etmoi) to its collection.
The museum has been collecting surrealist art since the 1970s. The collection includes highlights by Salvador Dalí, Marcel Duchamp, Man Ray, Francis Picabia, René Magritte, Unica Zurn and Leonora Carringten, among others. This collection can be considered unique and was created with the support of many funds, donors and contributions from governments. But it always lacked an important painting by Miró. He was called “the greatest surrealist of us all” by André Breton, the founder of Surrealism.
Peinture-poème (Musique, Seine, Michel, Bataille et moi) is one of the last so-called dream paintings, a group of works that Miró created between 1924 and 1927 and with which he showed at the beginning of his career that reality was greater for him than what is usually understood by that term. Over time, surrealist artists developed various methods and techniques to eliminate rational thinking when creating their work, from games to the use of alcohol and drugs, from randomly found images or structures to trance, hypnosis and – as Miró himself indicated – starvation. This new acquisition is a striking example of such surrealist ideas and techniques.
Peinture-poème (Musique, Seine, Michel, Bataille et moi) (1927) by Joan Miró was acquired thanks to the support of: the Rembrandt Association (with thanks also to its National Art Collection Fund, its Dura Art Fund, its Innorosa Fund, its Modern Art Theme Fund and the annual contribution from the Prince Bernhard Culture Fund), Museum Acquisition Fund, Mondriaan Fund, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen Foundation, Friends Lottery, Foundation for the Promotion of Popular Power, G.Ph. Verhagen Foundation, Kring van Eyck, Boijmans Business Club and Boijmans Corporate Members, Elise Mathilde Foundation, Erasmus Foundation and various private individuals.