Joan Miró was a Catalan artist (born 1893 in Barcelona), who worked in many mediums producing art lithographs, murals, tapestries, and sculptures for public spaces as well as being a prolific abstract painter. A visit to the Fundació Joan Miró is wonderful experience if you enjoy modern art.
The building in Barcelona is light and modern, with well apportioned gallery space and a very interesting selection of his work from the early realist paintings influenced by Paul Cézanne and Vincent van Gogh though to his later Surrealist work. Joan Miró always instead that he did not belong to any specific art school, but his works exhibit a dream-like, subconscious quality which is indicative of the Surrealists. Throughout his life he developed a style which included cosmically symbolic elements; and there is a definable tension between the dream-like poetic images from his mind which are contrasted with the harsh realities of life in the real world…
In many interviews from the 1930s on-wards, Joan Miró expressed contempt for conventional painting methods, which he saw as a device to support a bourgeois society. He went on to declare an “assassination of painting” and decreed to upset the visual elements of established painting. At the time, this was no doubt seen as a radical and exciting mission to followers of the Surrealist movement!
His work from around 1937 took on a political meaning, but his wonderful constellations (as above) shifted the focus to the subjects of women, birds, and the moon, which dominated his iconography for a great deal of the rest of his career (he died in 1983).
* If you visiting for the first time the audio guide is in valuable as there is very little description next to the artworks, many of which are difficult to decipher without extra information. Please note that for purchase of the audio guide you will need documents or identification to leave at the desk otherwise a returnable deposit of 50 euros is required.
Sonia Kilvington 
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