With sufficient notice, I proposed to director Horacio Sáenz Guerrero to commemorate the 90th anniversary of Picasso's birth. The calendar was favorable to us: the date fell on a Monday, which allowed La Vanguardia to take advantage of the color pages on Sunday.
As I wanted Picasso to paint the cover, I suggested to the director that I go and ask him personally.
Miró asked me to go and deliver his work to Picasso, but by hand. He longed to know how he reacted
In 1963 I had already spent an entire afternoon at his house in Mougins, introduced by Cinto Reventós Bordoy. Despite knowing the entrance ceremony was so difficult, I complied with it to the letter. However, this time I did not get him to receive me.
I then decided to ask Miró to paint the cover. My relationship with him was already one of absolute trust as he had dedicated the entire cover and two pages of La Vanguardia to the inauguration of his airport mural, an occasion that he took advantage of to surprise me with the news of the donation of a series of monumental works to Barcelona.
He accepted, delighted and happy. He announced to me that he would paint a work larger than the format of the cover; And he wanted, as I later learned, to give the original to his friend Pablo.
When he gave me the gouache, I showed it to the director: he liked it, and he had the good sense to observe that it would be a good idea to stamp the dedication, since only the anniversary date and the signature appeared. I made an appointment at the Gaspar Gallery to carry out the addition. Miró said: “Doneu-me a sharp and black canya.” He confidently wrote: “Per a Pablo Picasso.”
Upon receiving the printed copy of La Vanguardia, Miró congratulated me and asked me to go and deliver his work to Picasso, but by hand, no intermediaries. He longed for me to detail how he reacted and what he said. There was no way to achieve it. Then, he begged me to keep it at home. After about six months, one of her managers came looking for her.
Miró later sent me the photograph handing the gouache to Picasso.
Jacqueline asked photographer friend David Douglas Duncan to capture what the house had looked like after Pablo's death. In his graphic book Picasso's Silent Workshop, I excitedly discovered a page from the living room full of very dear things and on a small table: Miró's work and the copy of La Vanguardia folded on top. The caption said that it was the first newspaper in the world to congratulate him.
The original can now be admired for the first time in this double exhibition at its headquarters at the Fundació Miró.
