Le Lizard aux Plumes d’or (the Lizard with Golden Feathers)
Taking his cue from the great surrealist poets Appolinaire and Mallarme, Miro created illustrations for a series of poems he wrote. Miro’s lizards parade in the suite in various incarnations; they float in the heavens around the sun, transform themselves into harps, are festooned with hats, sprout hair and feathers and continue to remind us that they are symbols of metamorphosis and regality in mythology.
Miro employs solid and sustained forms in depicting his poems and the spontaneous, inventive and versatile imagery is immediately recognizable as quintessential Miro. In particular the two large format works in the suite reveal Miro’s ability to animate a pictorial space with astonishing facility. These images are some of the most compelling lithographs ever created by the artist.
Edition Information
1971. Fifteen lithographs, of which two are on double pages.
Edition: 195 copies signed on Rives vellum with the watermark of the artist. These included:
30 copies numbered from 1 to 20 and from I to X with a suite of 13 single-page lithographs on Japon kochi, numbered and signed.
20 copies numbered from 21 to 40 with a suite of the 13 lithographs on Japon kochi, numbered and signed.
120 copies numbered from 41 to 150 and from XI to XX.
In addition, fifteen copies for collaborators (marked chapelle 1/15 to 15/15), and 10 artist proofs of the suite on parchment and Japon kochi, numbered and signed.
13 of the lithographs were printed separately: 50 copies with wide margins on Japon nacre and 50 copies on Rives vellum measuring 16-3/16” x 21-1/16” with watermark of the artist, numbered and signed.
