Joan Miró (d'après)

A “mirobolant” painter, in the words of Robert Desnos, Spain’s Joan Miró (1893-1983) is closely associated with the history of Surrealism. The creator of a highly personal and free dream world, his painting nevertheless borders on lyrical abstraction. His vivid palette is dominated by blue. A prolific artist, Miró produced no fewer than 2,000 paintings, 5,000 drawings and collages, 500 sculptures and 400 ceramics! The painter is also known for his work on major public commissions.
Miró was born in 1893 in Barcelona, a city of culture. The son of a craftsman, he was gifted and interested in art, and trained at a free academy, where he discovered the Fauves and Post-Impressionists – painting full of color!
Miró arrived in Paris after the Great War, in 1920. Close to Picasso (during which time he discovered cubism), he encountered the Dadaist milieu and the avant-garde. Miró developed a free pictorial language, not unlike the automatic writing experiments of Robert Desnos and André Breton. The latter admired him to the point of considering him “the most surrealist of us all”. André Masson, Max Jacob, Jacques Prévert, Aragon and Paul Éluard became his friends. From then on, Miró was part of the Surrealist constellation, and signed its manifesto.