Important Notice

Lot 36

Joan Miró i Ferrà was born on April 20, 1893, in Barcelona, Spain. In 1900, he attended his first drawing lessons in a private primary school, and the earliest surviving drawing by Miró dates to 1901 and is preserved at the Foundació Joan Miró in Barcelona.

In 1907, Miró began his studies at the School of Commerce in Barcelona, and at the same time he enrolled at the School of Industrial and Fine Arts at La Llotja, which he attended... Joan Miró i Ferrà was born on April 20, 1893, in Barcelona, Spain. In 1900, he attended his first drawing lessons in a private primary school, and the earliest surviving drawing by Miró dates to 1901 and is preserved at the Foundació Joan Miró in Barcelona.

In 1907, Miró began his studies at the School of Commerce in Barcelona, and at the same time he enrolled at the School of Industrial and Fine Arts at La Llotja, which he attended until 1910. In 1912, the artist left his job as an account clerk and decided to dedicate himself exclusively to painting. Until 1915 he attended the school of art run by Francesc Galì where he met Joan Prats and other artists, and also studied at the Barcelona art society, Cercle Artìstic de Sant Lluc, which he joined in 1913.

Three years later Miró met the dealer Josep Dalmau who showed a great appreciation for his work and sponsored his practice, hosting his first solo exhibition in 1918. The same year, Miró founded part of the Agrupació Courbet with the students from Galì’s school and from the Cercle Artìstic de Sant Lluc.

In 1920, inspired by the Fauvist, Cubist and Surrealist movements that he learnt about, Miró travelled to Montmartre, Paris, where he met Picasso in his studio. He remained in France until 1925, and had his first solo exhibition in the French capital in 1921 at the Galerie La Licorne, organized by Josep Dalmau. Three years later, Miró joined the Surrealists, whose work his own paintings most closely approached. Soon after this, Miró worked with surrealist painter Max Ernst on set and costume designs for the ballets of Sergei Diaghilev, including ‘Romeo and Juliet’ performed by the Ballets Russes.

A few years later, after completing an experimental series of paintings, the artist decided to momentarily abandon painting in order to explore different media. In 1930, he held his first solo exhibition in the United States at the Valentine Gallery in New York, and four years later found representation at the Pierre Matisse Gallery there.

From 1936 until 1940 Miró was forced to remain in France due to the Spanish Civil War, and during these years he studied at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière and produced several drawings. With the invasion of France in 1940, Miró eventually moved back to Spain, settling in Palma, Majorca, and his native Mont-roig.

The first monograph on his work was published in 1940, and a year later, the Museum of Modern Art in New York hosted the first large Miró retrospective. From 1941 until 1947 he collaborated with Llorens Artigas, mainly producing ceramic works, and in 1948-49 produced several edition of lithographic prints in collaboration with the Mourlot Studios and Atelier Lacourière in Paris.

In 1947, the artist travelled to the United States for the first time, where he painted a mural for the Gourmet Room at the Terrace Plaza Hotel in Cincinnati. During the same year, he participated in the show, ‘Le Surréalisme en 1947: Exposition internationale du surréalisme’ at the Galerie Maeght in Paris, organized by Marcel Duchamp and André Breton.

In 1958, two murals he made for UNESCO were inaugurated in Paris, and he was awarded the Guggenheim International Award. In 1962 the Musée National d’Art Moderne in Paris hosted a retrospective of the artist’s work, and in 1967 he installed the ceramic mural he made in collaboration with Llorens Artigas at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York. The same year, he was awarded the Carnagie International Grand Prize for painting, followed by an honorary doctorate from Harvard University in 1968 and Barcelona University in 1979.

Miró’s other major commissions from the period include an enormous mural for Barcelona Airport, created in collaboration with Artigas in 1970, and a tapestry for the World Trade Center, New York, in 1974.

The Foundació Joan Miró-Centre d’Estudis d’Art Contemporani was established in Barcelona in 1972, and three years later it was opened to the public showing a large selection of paintings, sculptures, prints and textiles by the artist.

In 1980, King Juan Carlos of Spain awarded Miró the Gold Medal for Fine Arts, and several events were organized in order to celebrate Miró’s ninetieth birthday in 1983.

The artist died on December 25, 1983, in Palma.

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