Joan Miró

A major figure of twentieth century art, Joan Miro assert throughout his life an absolute freedom avoiding any agreement–Cubist, Surrealist, Abstract–that could lock him up. For six decades, the Catalan artist author of a language of signs of great wealth, painter and poet, engraver prolific, sculptor, ceramicist, illustrator and designer of sets and costumes for stage, will invent his world.

At 14, he studied at the Art School of Llotja. From 1912 to 1915, he enrolled in art school anti-academic Francesc Gali and devoted himself entirely to painting. By the early 20s, he shared this year between Paris and Mont-Roig, near Tarragona, and often very quickly the Surrealist group. In a continuing effort to pictorial research, he realized, by 1929, its construction, three-dimensional works made with wood, iron, objects founded, cut and assembled to announce his sculptures.

In 1940 he began work in ceramics, in Barcelona, with his friend Llorens Artigas (many vases and plates enamelled). Then he made his first sculptures in bronze and terra cotta. Exhibited in major museums, two foundations open to the public now bear his name.

Text courtesy Galerie Lelong & Co. Paris.