Joan Miró

JOAN MIRÓ I FERRÀ (Barcelona, 1893 - Palma de Mallorca, 1983).
"Cap i cua", 1979.
Lithograph, copy 20/75.
Signed in the lower right corner.
Measurements: 100 x 72 cm; 116 x 90 cm (frame).

Joan Miró developed in his works a characteristic atmosphere, impregnated with primary impulses left over from his contacts with Dadaism and Surrealism. His paintings function as microcosms, symbolic models of the world that seek an understanding of the universe through the coexistence between atavistic impulses and artistic space, full of cultural reminiscences. Thus, his works should be considered as an expression of his sense of life, which becomes concrete.

Joan Miró was trained in Barcelona, and made his individual debut in 1918, in the Dalmau Galleries. In 1920 he moved to Paris and met Picasso, Raynal, Max Jacob, Tzara and the Dadaists. There, under the influence of surrealist poets and painters, he matures his style; he tries to transpose surrealist poetry to the visual, based on memory, fantasy and the irrational. His third exhibition in Paris, in 1928, was his first great triumph: the Museum of Modern Art in New York acquired two of his works. He returned to Spain in 1941, and that same year the museum dedicated a retrospective to him that would be his definitive international consecration. Throughout his life he received numerous awards, such as the Grand Prizes of the Venice Biennale and the Guggenheim Foundation, the Carnegie Prize for Painting, the Gold Medals of the Generalitat de Catalunya and the Fine Arts, and was named Doctor Honoris Causa by the universities of Harvard and Barcelona. His work can currently be seen at the Joan Miró Foundation in Barcelona, as well as at the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, the MoMA in New York, the Reina Sofía Museum in Madrid, the National Gallery in Washington, the MNAM in Paris and the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo.