MEMORIES AND DREAMS:
MIRÓ’S GARDEN

DESCRIPTION

Joan Miró (Barcelona, 1893-Palma de Mallorca, 1983) is a universal master of contemporary art and one of the leading figures in the rupture and change of direction that took place in art history with the emergence of the first avantgarde movements at the beginning of the 20 th century.
This exhibition takes us on a journey through Miró’s life story. The works on display show the artist’s career in the fields of painting, prints and book
illustrations. At the same time, they are all related to the friendships the painter maintained throughout his life with writers, poets and some of the leading
European publishers of the last century.When we come to Miró’s work, we are struck by the spontaneity of his compositions, although, as the artist explained, they in fact reflect a process of
deep prior reflection.
The most important recurring themes Miró depicted in his work included children (their gender is not always easy to determine), the sun, the moon, the
stars, birds, eyes and ladders. The artist subjected his characters and other creations to a process of schematisation, reducing their elements to a minimum
expression by simplifying shapes, lines and colours.
He himself admitted that, for him, the form was more important than the colours that permeate his paintings. These came naturally once the form had
been determined. Black, red, blue, yellow and green are utterly dominant in his works, reflecting the artist’s preference for strongly contrasting colours.

His love of books led him to work closely with publishers, and he established real friendships with some of them. A significant number of the works in this
exhibition belonged to these friends of Joan Miró. They include paintings, drawings, a tapestry and even ceramics, all of high quality, chosen or made
specially for them by the artist.
Miró produced 262 illustrated books, and a considerable number of these appear in this exhibition.

This exhibition presents a journey through Joan Miró’s artistic career, full of tributes to the friendships that so greatly enriched his work and his life. The
selected works show the surviving legacy of these important relationships forged between Miró and various 20 th -century authors during a period of great
cultural ferment and exchanges of ideas.