Joan MIRÓ

Joan Miró was born in Barcelona in 1893 and died in Palma de Mallorca in 1983. This Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker and ceramist is one of the main representatives of the Surrealist movement.

At his beginnings, his work was influenced by Cubist, Fauve and Expressionist influences, then he turned to a two-dimensional painting, more graphic, and above all more inclined to childish and synthetic imagery than the artist would endlessly to develop throughout his career. The painting entitled “La Ferme“, painted in 1921, is one of the best-known paintings of this still “academic” period. So there follows an evolution towards the subconscious, the dreamy poetry and imagery peculiar to Spain. The color is stronger and stronger in his work, even if a series of black and white works persist, which notably decry the Franco regime.

The artist left Spain for Paris between 1919 and 1920, and then turned to dreamlike painting, in keeping with André Breton’s Surrealism, a pioneering movement of avant-garde Parisian painting. What Miró seeks is to abandon conventional methods of painting, to – in his own words in the 1930s – “kill them, assassinate them or rape them”, and thus foster a form of contemporary expression. He does not want to comply with any requirement, neither that of aesthetics and its methods, nor that of pure Surrealism.

The Joan Miró Foundation was created in Barcelona in 1975 and deals with the management of its work. It is a cultural center which is also devoted to the presentation of new trends in Contemporary Art, in the innovative spirit that Joan Mirò always manifested during his lifetime. Important collections of works by Miró are now housed in major institutions, such as the Pilar Foundation and the Joan Miró Museum in Palma de Mallorca. His works are also present in important institutions, such as the National Museum of Modern Art in Paris, or the Museum of Modern Art in Lille, as well as the Museum of Modern Art in New York.