Skip to content

Biography

1893-1983

CATALAN FOLK ART
Joan Miró was born April 20, 1893 in Barcelona, and studied at the Barcelona School of Fine Arts. His work before 1920 shows wide-ranging influences, including the bright colors of the Fauves, the broken forms of Cubism, and the powerful, flat two-dimensionality of Catalan folk art and Romanesque church frescoes of his native Spain.

BRIGHTLY COLORED DREAMS
He went to Paris in 1920, where he met Picasso and fell under the influence of the surrealist poets and writers. In his mature style, Miró drew on memory, fantasy, and the irrational to create works of art that are visual metaphors of surrealist poetry, paintings that became known as 'peinture-poésie.' These dreamlike visions, with gestural abstract signs and symbols as well as written words, have a whimsical or humorous quality but also appeal to an art of the spirit. The forms in the paintings from this period, amorphous amoebic shapes termed biomorphic, are usually painted in a limited range of bright colors, primarily blue, red, yellow, green, and black.

MASTER OF MANY MEDIUMS
Unlike Picasso, Miró made frequent trips back to Spain. He stayed in Paris throughout the Spanish Civil War and returned to Spain during the years 1940-1948. The images in his work turned fierce, reflecting the turmoil of the civil war and the disintegration of Europe. Miró continued to work in the free and spontaneous manner established in the 1920's, and made many trips to France, New York, Japan and the rest of Europe. His late work includes many sculptures, mixed media paintings, drawings, prints and ceramics.

Portraiture
Portraiture
From Cassatt to Freud Palm Beach November 20, 2024 - January 5, 2025
Calder to Condo
Calder to Condo
Modern and Contemporary Painting and Sculpture Palm Beach January 8 - February 2, 2022
Andy Warhol
Impressionist, Modern, and Postwar Masters
Palm Beach April 1 - May 28, 2021
Installation view of "Miró the Sculptor: Elements of Nature"
Miró the Sculptor
Elements of Nature January 13 – February 29, 2020
Three Dimensions cover
Three Dimensions: Modern and Contemporary Approaches to Relief and Sculpture
September - November 2017
Calder | Miró Constellations box set
Calder | Miró Constellations
Out of print April - May 2017
Riopelle / Miró: Color cover
Riopelle / Miró: Color
October - December 2015
Masterworks from Degas to Rosenquist catalogue cover
Masterworks from Degas to Rosenquist
Masterworks from Degas to Rosenquist February - April 2012
Alexander Rower, left, a grandson of Alexander Calder, and Joan Punyet Miró, a grandson of Joan Miró, at the Calder Foundation with works by the modern masters.
The New York Times
Miró, Calder and a Convergence of ‘Constellations’ by Arthur Lubow April 20, 2017
Calder, Constellation Mobile
The Art Newspaper
When the Stars Align: Miró and Calder to shine in joint New York shows December 12, 2016
The New York Times Style Magazine, Two Men and a Show
T Magazine
Two Men and a Show November 15, 2015
Blouin Modern Painters Cover
Modern Painters
Hit List November 2015
artnet news logo
Artnet News
David Ebony's Top 10 New York Gallery Shows for October October 23, 2105
TimeOut New York Logo
Time Out New York
Critic's Pick | Contemporary Art October 16
Architectural Digest October, 2015 Cover
Architectural Digest
Five Design-Focused Gallery Shows Open in New York City September 22, 2015

New York City galleries fill up with furniture. This time it’s not the seating, it’s the show

 

This fall, a crop of artist-made chairs, tables, sofas, and ceramics has found its way into the New York City gallery circuit, prompting us to reassess the once-utilitarian forms.

 

Best known for his colorful, surrealistic paintings, later in life Joan Miró also made sculptures that nodded to basic furniture forms. For the show “Riopelle/Miró: Color,” Acquavella Galleries showcases the relationship between Jean Paul Riopelle’s oil paintings and Miró’s painted bronze sculptures—several comprising stools—from the mid-1960s. October 1 through December 11 at Acquavella Galleries, 18 East 79th Street; acquavellagalleries.com

 

The New York Observer Logo
The Observer
8 Things to Do in New York’s Art World Before October 1 September 28, 2015