LONDON.- Simon C. Dickinson, Ltd. is presenting Eight Sculptures by Joan Miró, an exhibition of the artist’s bronze sculptures which are being sold by the family of Joan Miró to benefit Yorkshire Sculpture Park. The exhibition takes place at Dickinson’s London gallery between 29 January and 1 April 2015.

Yorkshire Sculpture Park (YSP) is the leading international centre for modern and contemporary sculpture. YSP was the first sculpture park in the UK, and is the largest of its kind in Europe, showing a significant collection of sculpture, including bronzes by Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth’s The Family of Man, and site-specific works by Andy Goldsworthy, David Nash and James Turrell. In 2014, YSP was named Art Fund Museum of the Year.

YSP enjoys a long-standing relationship with the Miró family, and in 2012 organised the largest exhibition of Miro’s sculpture to date, displaying over 70 works. With key works sited in the Yorkshire landscape, the exhibition attempted to fulfill the artist’s belief that “sculpture must stand in the open air, in the middle of nature.” To honour this close friendship, the Miró family wanted to find a way to contribute to the future success of YSP and have agreed to the sale of the eight sculptures in this exhibition in order to help raise vital funds. The works were selected and donated by the artist’s grandson, Joan Punyet Miró, and great granddaughter, Lola Fernández Miró.

Peter Murray CBE, Founding and Executive Director of YSP says: “Through the generosity of the Miró family and the guidance of The Dickinson Gallery, sales of the sculptures will help to create a fund for YSP to continue to pursue exciting and innovative exhibitions, and, most importantly, to create opportunities for younger artists.”

Joan Miró expressed his playful, irreverent artistic vision across a wide spectrum of media: painting, sculpture, ceramics, graphic work, illustration, textiles, stained glass windows, and even theatrical stage sets. Historically, his work as a sculptor has been overshadowed by his pivotal output from the interwar period and immediate post-war era, but several recent exhibitions have attempted to shed new light on the challenges tackled by Miró towards the end of his long life and career.

In his sculptures, Miró combined found natural objects, which he collected during his walks in the countryside, with items borrowed from his studio or foundry, typically uniting them with elements modelled in clay. These assemblages were subsequently cast in bronze. The resulting works can appear wholly spontaneous but they are in fact the result of a lengthy and carefully considered process that incorporates spontaneous elements. By repurposing forms that were not in their original state remarkable – stones, tree stumps, fragments of furniture or pottery, and artists’ tools – Miró gave them a new and ultimately greater identity.