Miró, Joan, Anthology of Black Humor, 1950

“Black humor is bounded by too many things, such as silliness, skeptical irony, the unserious joke…. (the enumeration would be long), but it is par excellence the mortal enemy of sentimentality with its perpetually barking air – sentimentality always on a blue background – and of a certain short-term fantasy, which too often gives itself over to poetry, vainly persists in wanting to subject the mind to its outdated artifices, and no doubt won’t have much longer to raise its crowned crane’s head on the sun, among the other poppy seeds. ” André Breton, 1939.

L’Anthologie de l’humour noir is an anthology written by André Breton and first published in 1940. Ten years later, Éditions du Sagittaire suggested to the Surrealist leader that he reissue the work, which would be published once again after the deletion of certain texts and authors and the addition of others. The major new feature of this edition is the participation of Joan Miró, with the production of an original color lithograph.

Two colorful characters present themselves to whoever opens the book. Their misshapen, ill-proportioned limbs give them a grotesque air, amusing the reader as he tries to associate the childlike features with human body parts. All this takes place under a yellow sky with a green moon above.