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Joan Miró
(1893-1983)
Miró
was born April 20, 1893, in Barcelona and studied at the Barcelona
School of Fine Arts and the Academia Galí. 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.
He moved to Paris in 1920, where, under the influence of surrealist
poets and writers, he evolved his mature style. Miró
drew on memory, fantasy, and the irrational to create works
of art that are visual analogues of surrealist poetry. These
dreamlike visions often have a whimsical or humorous quality,
containing images of playfully distorted animal forms, twisted
organic shapes, and odd geometric constructions. Amorphous
amoebic shapes alternate with sharply drawn lines, spots,
and curlicues, all positioned with seeming nonchalance.
Miró later produced highly generalized, ethereal works
in which his organic forms and figures are reduced to abstracts
spots, lines and bursts of colors. Miró also experimented
in a wide array of other media, devoting himself to etchings
and lithographs for several decades. His ceramic sculptures
are also notable, in particular his two large ceramic murals
for the UNESCO building in Paris (Wall of the Moon and Wall
of the Sun, 1957-59).
It was at the end of the 60's when his final period was marked
and which lasted until his death. During this time, Miró
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 1976 the Joan Miró 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. Miró
died in Majorca, Spain, on December 25, 1983.
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