Collection: Miró Joan

(Barcelona 1893 - Palma de Mallorca 1983)

Catalan painter, sculptor, and ceramist, Joan Miró was a representative of Surrealism, perhaps the most enigmatic among the artists of this movement. Despite this, he always enjoyed enormous success, as his works possess the curious characteristic of bringing a smile to the observer, motivated by the bright and cheerful colors, the strange unreal figures, and in particular by his signs, which may seem at first glance like children's scribbles. The serenity of his work is so powerful that it leads one to accept his expression even if its meaning is not fully understood: Miró seems to speak directly to the unconscious, to the deepest emotions.
Growing up between Barcelona and the family country house in Montroig, a place that profoundly influenced his imagination, between 1912 and 1915 he attended the Academy of Francisco Galí in Barcelona, where he was taught to draw by first touching objects with his eyes closed: a cutting-edge academy where he became acquainted with the painting of Claude Monet, Vincent Van Gogh, Paul Cézanne, the Fauves, and the cubists. In 1924 he joined the surrealist group and twenty years later participated in the International Surrealism Exhibition in Paris. From 1925 to 1927 his paintings became dreamlike and stripped, as if liberated from the force of gravity and summoned by the stars.
Miró's graphic work is equally important: the activity engaged him to such an extent that for several years he stopped painting to dedicate his soul and body to works intended for volumes and author magazines. Between 1947 and 1956 he focused on lithographs and engravings and illustrated many books by poet friends – including Jacques Prévert – and began his collaboration with Maeght for Derrière le miroir.
The recognition of this production came in 1954, when he won the Grand Prize for graphics at the Venice Biennale: an award that confirmed the centrality of original printmaking in his research, alongside and not subordinate to painting.
In addition to numerous awards and two honoris causa degrees, in 1980 King Juan Carlos awarded Miró the Gold Medal for Fine Arts. The Fundació Pilar i Joan Miró in Palma was founded in 1981, as his permanent legacy to the city that welcomed him.