Three unpublished drawings by Joan Miró, resurfaced from the private archives of a friend and collaborator, are now arriving on the market with estimates up to 400,000 euros.
How the lost drawings of Joan Miró resurfaced
A group of three works on paper by the Catalan painter Joan Miró, unknown for decades, will be auctioned on the French Riviera in April. The works belonged to Edmond Vernassa, a multidisciplinary artist and industrial designer, friend and collaborator of the artist.
The first sheet to emerge was Le Soleil Mallorca (1972), used in tourist campaigns for the Spanish island in the 1970s. The image shows one of Miró’s typical oval “parrot-rays,” surrounded by small black dotted stars.
The drawing was identified by auctioneer Guillaume Mermoz during a visit to Vernassa’s apartment in Nice, in the south of France. The discovery immediately raised a crucial question for the market: could there be other sheets that remained hidden?
Which Miró drawings were found in Edmond Vernassa’s studio
Vernassa’s heirs decided to inspect his historic studio. Additionally, among the archival materials, they found an old poster tube, closed for years, containing two large drawings for internal balcony railings.
Both projects reach about nine feet in length and are densely covered with lines, signs, and shapes reminiscent of constellations. These are therefore large-format studies, conceived to interact with domestic architecture.
“It hadn’t been opened for decades and had passed from Vernassa to his descendants,” Mermoz explained via email. “As soon as the lines on the paper appeared, any doubt vanished: they were two major works, instantly recognizable by the unmistakable hand of Miró.”
When and where will Miró’s works be auctioned
The three works will be offered for sale by the auction house Métayer-Mermoz in Antibes on April 19. Additionally, the event is part of an already intense spring calendar for art drawing in France.
For each railing drawing, an estimate between 200,000 and 400,000 euros (equivalent to 231,000–463,000 dollars) has been set. The smaller sheet, a double-sided one with the figure of the sun, is valued between 30,000 and 50,000 euros (35,000–58,000 dollars).
Before the sale, the works will be presented in Paris during the Paris Drawing Week, scheduled from March 25 to 30. In this context, the drawings will be compared with other 20th-century masterpieces on paper, attracting the attention of collectors and curators.
What is the role of architecture in Miró’s work?
In the 1960s and 1970s, Miró developed a consistent practice of monumental works for public and architectural spaces, often starting from large preparatory sheets. However, interventions on interior architectural elements remained exceptional episodes.
Among the most notable cases are the large wall created for the UNESCO headquarters in Paris and the ceramic mosaic for the Palacio de Congresos in Madrid. In these projects, the artist thought on an urban scale, while the drawings for railings reveal a closer relationship with inhabited space.
The impetus to conceive the Parisian balcony railings probably came from the patrons, the gallerists and patrons Aimé and Marguerite Maeght. Their apartment, in fact, became a sort of laboratory for aesthetic experimentation, in continuity with their activity in the area.
Who were Aimé and Marguerite Maeght and why do they matter?
The Maeghts played a central role in the development of modern art on the Riviera in the second half of the 20th century. Additionally, in the mid-1960s, they founded the Fondation Maeght in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, today an international reference point for European modernism.
Around the foundation revolved a fluid scene, where artists like Miró, Marc Chagall, and Alexander Calder shared ideas and projects. Compared to many other museum realities of the time, here the dialogue between authors, collectors, and technicians was particularly intense.
In this context, Vernassa directed a laboratory for working with plastic materials, with a preference for plexiglass. He was entrusted with the drawings to realize the railing project; the small pinholes, still visible, testify to the sheets being pinned to the walls of his studio.
Why are these drawings important for collectors and scholars?
According to Mermoz, the dynamic artistic context of the time, where artists, dealers, collectors, and workshops met, explains Vernassa’s presence in the Maeght group. Additionally, it makes these drawings particularly significant for their exhibition and ownership history.
The sheets stand out both for their exceptional dimensions and for their provenance, directly linked to the Maeght circle. For the market, they represent the rare opportunity to acquire interior design projects that integrate painting and architecture, a poorly documented area in Miró’s production.
For critical reconstructions and reasoned catalogs, these works on paper will offer new evidence on how Miró translated his cosmic signs into three-dimensional space. The comparison with contemporary public works will be a particularly fertile research ground.
What other works will be offered in the same auction?
Alongside the three drawings, the April sale will also include a selected core of works by other post-war authors. Among these stands out a sculpture by César Baldaccini, composed of compressed cans and estimated between 12,000 and 18,000 euros (14,000–21,000 dollars).
A painting depicting a dancer by the Franco-Chinese artist Lanlan will also be offered, with an estimate between 25,000 and 35,000 euros (29,000–40,000 dollars). Overall, the catalog builds a dialogue between material experiments and figurative languages of different geographical origins.
For further insights into the figure of Joan Miró and his relationship with architecture, one can consult the materials of the Fundació Joan Miró in Barcelona and the archives of the Fondation Maeght (fondation-maeght.com).
Image: Juan Miró, Le Soleil Mallorca (1972). Photo: courtesy Métayer-Mermoz.
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