Joan Miró (1893-1983) Spanish, 1951 Color Lithograph. Title: "Sur Quatre Murs." 

Overall: 11 1/2 X 33 1/4 in. 

Sight: 9 1/2 X 31 in. 

#3856 . 

Joan Miró i Ferrà was born April 20th, 1893 in Montroig, a coastal town in Catalonia. He grew up in the Barri Gòtic neighborhood of Barcelona, Spain, the son of a goldsmith and watchmaker, Miquel Miró Adzerias. He began drawing classes at the age of seven, and although his father saw art simply as a hobby compared to the lucrative crafts field Miró enrolled at the fine art academy at La Llotja in 1907. Miró initially went to business school as well as art school, working as a clerk when he was a teenager, although he abandoned the business world completely for art after suffering his first nervous breakdown. He studied at the Cercle Artístic de Sant Lluc and had his first solo show in 1918 at the Galeries Dalmau, where his work was ridiculed and defaced, causing bouts of depression that would plague him all his life. Inspired by Fauve and Cubist exhibitions in Barcelona Miró moved to the arts community in Montparnasse, Paris in 1920, although he continued to spend summers in Catalonia. His early art was inspired by Vincent van Gogh and Paul Cézanne, with his works in Paris showing a transition to a more individual style of painting. After Miró’s first Parisian solo exhibition at Galerie la Licorne in 1921 he was invited to join the Surrealist group in 1924, where the symbolic and cluttered chaotic lack of focus that had defined his work thus far began to diminish. He experimented with collage and the process of painting within his work so as to reject the framing that traditional painting provided. In 1926 he collaborated with Max Ernst on designs for ballet impresario Sergei Diaghilev. Miró married Pilar Juncosa in Palma (Majorca) on October 12th, 1929, and they had a daughter, María Dolores Miró, the following year. When Pierre Matisse opened an art gallery in New York City in 1931 it became an influential part of the Modern art movement in America, and represented Miró from the outset, introducing his work to the United States market. He was unable to visit Spain during the Spanish Civil War, and it was not until the Republican government commissioned him to paint a mural for the 1937 Paris Exhibition that Miró’s work began to take on politically charged meanings. In 1939 Miró relocated to Varengeville in Normandy in fear of Germany’s impending invasion of France, then narrowly escaped to Spain for the duration of the War. Features of his work during the War show a shifting focus to the subjects of women, birds, and the moon, which would dominate his iconography for much of the rest of his career. After the War Miró lived in Barcelona and made frequent visits to Paris to work on printing techniques at the Atelier Lacourière. He developed a close relationship with the printer Fernand Mourlot, producing over one thousand different lithographic editions of his work. Miró created a series of sculptures and ceramics for the garden of the Maeght Foundation in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, France in 1964, as well as a tapestry for the World Trade Center in 1974 that was one of the most valuable pieces lost during the September 11th Attacks. In 1979 Miró received an honorary doctorate from the University of Barcelona, and he died from heart failure on December 25th, 1983. His work is highly sought after by collectors, and his influences on Modern art, as well as on discussions about the role mental illness plays in art and creativity, are almost unparalleled.