Two characters pursued by a bird

Joan Miró was born at Montroig (Barcelona), in 1893. After a nervous breakdown because of his job as an accountant, in contrast with his artistic vocation, in 1912 he started attending the Academy Galí in Barcelona.

At the beginning he was attracted by Impressionism and Fauvism, but when he moved to Paris in 1919, he finally found his Surrealist trends. Here he met Picasso and Dadaists but when he met Max Ernst and the Surrealists he become “the most Surrealist of the Surrealists” (Max Ernst). In 1928 he exhibited his artworks at Barnheim’s gallery becoming famous. His paintings are the lyric and symbolic representation of the reality, an evocative transposition of memory and unconscious impulses, many basic graphic signs and deformations characterized by brilliant colours lost in a dreaming and enchanted atmosphere.

Miró finally left the traditional painting for the abstraction. Les peintures sauvages (1935) are a great example of his style. After the civil war, he came back to Spain, living between Barcelona and Palma de Mallorca. During these years he painted the famous Constellations and from ‘40s he realized many mural paintings and monumental sculptures (Hotel Terrace Palace of Cincinnati -1947, Palace of UNESCO in Paris – 1958). In 1972 he found the Fundació Joan Miró in Barcelona and during his last years he received many prizes and awards. He died in 1983 in Palma de Mallorca.