Rusart. Joan Miro - biography, paintings, drawings

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Joan Miro (1893-1983)

Joan Miro was born on April 20, 1893 as the son of a goldsmith and jewelry maker in Barcelona in Northern Spain. Miro started drawing classes at the age of seven, but his parents would rather have seen him taking a job as a serious businessman. He even took business classes in 1907 simultaneously with his art classes. Miro worked as an accountant for nearly two years until he had a nervous breakdown. His parents finally accepted their son's choice of a career as an artist without giving him too much support.

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

In 1920, he visited Paris for the first time, and met Picasso. This is probably one of the main reasons why his style changed after this point, and Miro began to focus on more surreal paintings. He decided to move to Paris, and held his first solo exhibition there in 1921. From 1924 on, Miro joined the circle of the Surrealist theorist Andre Breton. His painting style took a turn to Surrealism. His comrades were Andre Masson and Max Ernst. But he never integrated himself completely into this group dominated by Andre Breton.

In 1926, Miro and his friend, Max Ernst, were commissioned to design the sets and costumes for the ballet Romeo and Juliet, performed in Paris by the Ballets Russes. Around this time, Miró also started to become interested in object collages. The first he produced was the Spanish Dancer. He moved away from painting for a while, and concentrated on sculptures. However, he also experimented with a wide variety of other artistic forms, including lithography, engraving, and painting over copper.

By 1930 the artist had developed his own style. Miro art is hard to describe. It is characterized by brilliant colors combined with simplified forms that are reminiscent of drawings made by children at the age of five. Joan Miro art integrates elements of Catalan folk art. He liked to compare his visual arts to poetry.

He married in 1929, and his daughter was born the following year. Miró then decided to spend more time in Spain, until the outbreak of the Spanish Civil war forced him to move his family back to Paris in 1936. They remained there until 1940, when they moved back to Spain. Miró continued to learn about, and experiment with, various materials and types of art, but it was his ceramic work that he concentrated on.

In the late 1950s, Miro began to produce commissioned works, particularly murals and large outdoor sculptures for locations around the world. In the end of the 1960s his final period was marked and lasted until his death. During this time, he concentrated more and more on monumental and public works. He was characterized by the body language and freshness with which he carried out his canvasses, as well as the special attention he paid to material and the stamp he received from informalism. He concentrated his interest on the symbol, not giving too much importance to the representing theme, but to the way the symbol emerged as the piece of work.

In 1975 the Joan Miro Foundation Centre of Contemporary Art Study was officially opened in the city of Barcelona and in 1979, four years before his death, he was named Doctor Honoris Causa by the University of Barcelona. This Center is not surprisingly the biggest collection in the world, because Miro donated the vast majority of his masterpieces before his death. It includes 240 paintings, 175 sculptures, 9 textiles, 4 ceramics, the almost complete graphic works, and around 8,000 drawings. Other examples of Miro’s work can be found at museums and locations around the world. Miro died in Majorca, Spain, on December 25, 1983.

Joan Miro Claude Monet Edgar Degas Emily Carr Marc Chagall Renoir Van Gogh Yasek Jerka Pavel Filonov Ray CaesarRembrandt History of Arts Rob Gonsalves Dali

The Farmer oil on canvas, 1912-14, 65x50cm Private collection	Still Life with Rose oil on cardboard, 1916, 77x74cm Private collection	Prades, the Village oil on canvas, 1917, 65x72.5cm The Solomon R. Guggebheim Museum, New York	Ciurana, the Path oil on canvas, 1917, 60x73cm
North-South oil on canvas, 1917, 62x70cm Private collection	Portrait of E.C. Ricart Oil and color print on canvas, 1917, 81x65cm Private collection	Portrait of V. Nubiola oil on canvas, 1917, 104x113cm Museum Folkwang, Essen, Germany	Self-Portrait oil on canvas, 1917, 61x50cm
Nude with the mirrow oil on canvas, 1919, 112x102cm Private collection	Self-Portrait Oil on canvas, 1919, 75x60cm Musee Picasso, Paris, France	The Waggon Tracks oil on canvas, 1918, 75x75cm Private collection	The Vegetable Garden with Donkey oil on canvas, 1918, 64x70cm Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden
Standing Nude oil on canvas, 1921, 130x96cm Perls Galleries, New York	The Table (Still Life with Rabbit) Oil on canvas, 1920, 130x110cm Private collection	The Farm oil on canvas, 1921-22, 132x147cm The National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, USA	The Carbide Lamp oil on canvas, 1922-23, 38x45.7cm The Museum of Modern Arts, New York
The Farmer's Wife oil on canvas, 1922-23, 81x65cm Private collection	The Ear of Corn Oil on canvas, 1922-23, 37.8x46cm The Museum of Modern Arts, New York	The Tilled Field oil on canvas, 1923-24, 66x92.7cm The Solomon R. Guggebheim Museum, New York	Catalan Landscape (The Hunter) oil on canvas, 1923-24, 64.8x100.3cm The Museum of Modern Arts, New York
Carnival of Harlequin oil on canvas, 1924	Bottle of Vine oil on cardboar, 1924, 73.3x65.5cm Private collection	Hermitage Oil, pencil on canvas, 1924, 114.3x147cm The Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA, USA	Catalan Peasant with a Guitar oil on canvas, 1924, 148x114cm
Maternity oil on canvas, 1924, 92x73cm Private collection	The Birth of the World Oil on canvas, 1925, 251x200cm The Museum of Modern Arts, New York	Stars in Snails' Sexes Oil on canvas, 1925, 130x97cm Private collection	Dancer oil on canvas, 1925, 115.5x88.5cm Galerie Rosengart, Lucerne, Switzerland
Photo: This is the Color of My Dreams oil on canvas, 1925, 96x130cm The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, The Pierre and Maria-Gaetana Matisse Collection	Siesta Oil on canvas, 1925, 113x144cm Musee National d'Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris	Bathing Woman Oil on canvas, 1925, 73x92cm Musee National d'Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris	Dog Barking at the Moon oil on canvas, 1926, 73x92cm The Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA, USA
Landscape (The Hare) oil on canvas, 1927, 130x195cm The Solomon R. Guggebheim Museum, New York	Dutch Interior Oil on canvas, 1928, 91.8x73 cm The Museum of Modern Arts, New York	Dutch Interior Oil on canvas, 1928, 92x73cm The Solomon R. Guggebheim Museum, New York	Dutch Interior oil on canvas, 1928, 129.9x96.8cm The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Portrait of Mrs Mills in 1750 (after Constable) oil on canvas, 1929, 116.7x89.6cm The Museum of Modern Arts, New York	Drawing-Collage with a Hat Pencil and collage on paper, 1933, 91.8x73 cm The Museum of Modern Arts, New York	Painting Oil on canvas, 1933, 130.4x162.5cm Fundacio Joan Miro, Barcelona, Spain	Rope and People oil and rope on cardboard, stuck to a wooden board, 1935, 104.7x74.6cm The Museum of Modern Arts, New York
Metamorphose Crayon et aquarelle, collage, 1936, 64x47.8cm	Still Life with Old Shoe 1937 The Museum of Modern Arts, New York	A Dew Drop Falling from a Bird's Wing Wakes Rosalie, who Has Been Asleep in the Shadow of a Spider's Web Oil on canvas, 1939, 65.4x91.7cm The University of Iowa Museum of Art, The Mark Pamney Memorial Fund, Iowa, IA, USA	Constellation: The Morning Star Gouache and terpentine paint on paper, 1940, 38x46cm Private collection
Woman and Bird Before the Moon Oil on canvas, 1944		The Nightingale's Song at Midnight and the Morning Rain Gouache and terpentine paint on paper, 1940, 38x46cm Perls Galleries. New York	The Escape Ladder Oil on canvas, 1939, 73x54cm Private collection
Constellation: Awakening at Dawn Gouache and terpentine paint on paper, 1945, 46x38cm Private collection	Blue II Oil on canvas, 1961, 270x355cm Musee National d'Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris	Blue III Oil on canvas, 1961, 270x355cm Musee National d'Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris	Gold of the Azure Oil on canvas, 1967, 205x173.5cm Fundacio Joan Miro, Barcelona, Spain

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