A toute épreuve (Foolproof)

Joan Miró

1958

Color and black and white woodcuts, collagraphs, collage, and letterpress, bound volume

Minneapolis Institute of Art

À toute épreuve, with text by the French poet Paul Éluard and original woodcuts by the Catalan surrealist Joan Miró, is a triumph of twentieth-century book art. The publisher, Gérald Cramer, first approached Miró with the idea to illustrate Éluard's book of poems in 1947. Miró cut more than 230 woodblocks over a period of nearly eleven years to complete the project. In addition to traditional woodcut, he also used the technique of collotype-wood blocks collaged with various natural and manufactured materials-to add distinctions of texture and form to his designs. Early into the project, Miró wrote to his publisher …I have made some