Joan Miro

Assassinator of painting
The artist who upset the establishment
Joan Miró (1893-1983) is one of the most significant Spanish painters of the twentieth century. His early work clearly shows the influence of Fauvism and Cubism. The Catalan landscape also shapes the themes and treatment of these initial works. In his travels, Miró encountered the intellectual avant-garde of his time; his friends included Francis Picabia, Tristan Tzara, André Masson, Jean Arp and Pablo Picasso.

From the mid-twenties onward, Miró strove to leave direct objective references behind and developed the pictograms that typify his style. The pictures of this period, which include perhaps the most beautiful and significant ones of his whole oeuvre, dispense with spatiality and an unambiguous reference to objects. From then on, the surfaces were defined by numerals, writing, abstract emblems, and playful figures and creatures. In the postwar years be begin producing graphic works, ceramics, monumental murals, and sculptures. In these works, too, the Catalan artist sought the solid foundation of a figurative, symbolic art, featuring faces, stars, moons, rudimentary animal forms, and letters. Joan Miró developed in several stages his characteristic flowing calligraphic style and his world of forms resembling shorthand symbols; from Fauvism to Surrealism by way of his original childlike style, Miró sought to shake up the establishment and in doing so made a name for himself.