About this work
Joan Miró was first introduced to printmaking through collaborations with Surrealist poets and publishers, who invited him to illustrate their books. Of all the major Surrealist painters, printmaking played the most significant and enduring role in his practice. The sun eater was printed at the Paris workshop of Fernand Mourlot, a key figure who helped to initiate a colour lithography renaissance in the years following the Second World War. During this time, Paris re-established itself as the epicentre of European printmaking, and Mourlot’s print workshop attracted many leading artists of the time, including Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, Fernand Léger, Marc Chagall and Henri Matisse.