Overview
Joan Miró, a Spanish painter, sculptor, and ceramist is celebrated internationally for works that eschew conventional theories of representation. Inspired by the ancient drawings in the Altamira Cave that he visited with the celebrated ceramist Josep Llorens Artigas in 1957, Miró created works reminiscent of children’s drawings and graffiti, a true expression of the “infancy of art”. Such a metaphorical childhood reference reflected the prevailing surrealist theories current among the intellectuals and artists to whom Miró was exposed. In the book Painters on Painting, Miró was quoted in an interview as stating that his favorite schools of painting were the cave painters, the primitives. Believing that all art created after the time of these cave painters was “degenerate”, Miró sought to create “pure” paintings, as in Untitled which embodies the use of ochre pigments and earth tones developed from his visit to the Altamira Cave. Miró further sought in such works to “rediscover the sources of human feeling”, deeming pure abstraction to be an “absurdity” and “empty”. Eschewing abstraction, he sought instead to dismantle the formerly accepted “precepts of representation” and to bring art back through metaphors of infancy and graffiti. Such a radical novel style of painting would later influence generations of twentieth century avant-garde artists. Himself heavily influenced by Surrealism, Miró drew on his own active imagination to create works that appeared at first glance to be spontaneous, but which truly had been meticulously planned and executed.
Exhibitions
Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1941
Musée National dâArt Moderne, Paris, 1962, 1974, 1978
Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina SofÃa, Madrid
Tate Modern, London
Galerie Lelong, Paris
National Gallery, Washington, D.C.
Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona
Museums and Public Collections
Art Institute of Chicago
Birmingham Museums & Art Gallery
Museum of Modern Art, New York
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Guggenheim Museum, New York
Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
Tate Gallery, London
Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice
Nasher Museum
Dallas Museum of Art
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
National Galleries of Scotland
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
National Gallery of Australia
Pilar and Joan Miro Foundation and Museum
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Yale University Art Gallery
Akron Art Museum
Allen Art Museum at Oberlin College
Art Collection of the Biblioteca Luis Angel Arango
Art Gallery of New South Wales
Art Gallery of Ontario
Ball State Museum of Art
Berkeley Art Museum
Block Museum of Art at Northwestern University
Caixa Galicia Foundation
Canton Museum of Art
Centre Pompidou
Céret Musem of Modern Art
Cleveland Museum of Art
Corcoran Gallery of Art
Crawford Art Gallery
Currier Gallery of Art
Fukuoka Art Museum
Fundació Suñol, Barcelona
Fundación Proa, Buenos Aires
Fundación Telefónica, Chile
Galerie di Palazzo Leoni Montanari
Haifa Mseum
Harvard University Art Museums
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden
Indiana State University Art Collection
Indianapolis Museum of Art
Kimbell Art Museum
Kunstmuseum Basel
Lille Metropole Musee dâArt Moderne
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Maier Museum of Art
Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum
Milwaukee Art Museum
Minneaplois Institute of Arts
Musee des Beaux-Arts de Lyon
Musee des Beaux-Arts de Montreal
Museo del Territorio Biellese
Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes
Mseo Patio Herreriano de Valladoid
Museu Nacional de Belas Artes
Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen
Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo
Palazzo Ruspoli, Rome
Philadelphia Museum of Art
Pomona College Museum of Art
Reina SofÃa National Museum
Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium
Saint Louis Art Museum
San Diego Museum of Art
San Jose Museum of Art
Snite Museum of Art at the University of Notre Dame
Studio Esseci
The Albertina
Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum
University of Iowa Museum of Art
Van Abbemuseum
Walker Art Center
Wichita Art Museum