Joan Miró

JOAN MIRÓ I FERRÀ (Barcelona, 1893 - Palma de Mallorca, 1983).
"Museu de la Resistència, Salvador Allende", 1980.
Lithograph on Arches paper, copy 4/75.
Signed and numbered by hand.
Measurements: 88.3 x 59.7 cm; 108 x 79 cm (frame).

This lithograph becomes a graphic testimony of Miró's involvement in the international struggle against the abuse of power and dictatorial regimes. Miró made it possible for his Foundation in Barcelona to host the first exhibition of MIRSA (Museo Internacional de la Resistencia Salvador Allende) in 1977, which was followed by renewed commitments to popular unity in exile.

In this engraving, the graphic elements refer to biomorphic forms that are organized in a playful way, as black strokes interacting with fields of pure colors. This combination of resources generates a sensation of movement and lightness, recurring characteristics in the work of Miró, who constantly explored the interaction between line, color and emptiness.

Joan Miró trained in Barcelona, and made his individual debut in 1918, at 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.