One of the great artist books of the 20th century, À toute épreuve (Proof against all, 1958) was a creative collaboration between two Surrealists — artist Joan Miró and poet Paul Éluard. Miró cut over 230 woodblocks for the book’s 80 colorful prints, which interweave with Éluard’s poems on each page. This exhibition explores À toute épreuve, considered the pinnacle of Mirò’s work as a book illustrator, within the artist’s broader career in artistic publishing. Tracing his intricate work across printmaking processes and the constellation of people involved in such projects highlights the deeply collaborative nature of artist book production.

The exhibition offers an opportunity to look more closely at the relationship between Miró’s visual language and Éluard’s poetry, examining how the two forms come together across the pages of the book. The combination of colorful prints and poems creates a dynamic relationship between image and text, while the intricate processes behind the production reveal the many stages involved in bringing an artist book to life.

By focusing on À toute épreuve within Miró’s wider engagement with artistic publishing, the exhibition also considers the importance of collaboration in the artist book tradition. The project brings together artistic vision, literary work, printmaking expertise, and the contributions of numerous people, demonstrating how these different elements can converge in the creation of a singular publication.