Joan Miro
Joan Miro is a famous Spanish Contemporary artist. Miro paintings fall into the art movements of Surrealism, Dada, Personal & Experimental. Miro found success in Painting, Sculpture, Mural, and Ceramics. Miro's art helped to influence the likes of Arshile Gorky and other modern contemporary artists. Miro himself found inspiration for his art from artists like André Masson, Pablo Picasso, Tristan Tzara and André Breton. Salvador Dali was also an influential Surrealist artists of the time. The Tilled Field was was Miro's first Surrealist masterpiece. Miro's surrealist origins evolved out of "repression" much like all Spanish surrealist and majic realist work. Fascist Franco's rule of Spain forced Miro and most other talented artists to flee to safer regions such as USA.
Subscribe to RSS FeedJoan Miro art was aided from his extensive training which he received at Escuela de Bellas Artes de la Llotja, Escuela de Arte de Francesco Galí and Circulo Artístico de Sant Lluc, 1907–1913. Joan Miro was originally part of the "Generation '27" a collective made up of Spanish poets, writers, painters and film makers that included Luis Bunuel, Miguel Hernandez, Jose Maria Hinojosa and Garcia Lorca. The latter three were murdered by Franco during Spain's fascist reign. Bunuel and a few other artists were able to flee for France and the US. Miro was among these exiles. It is also important to note that Miro's surrealist origins evolved out of "repression" much like all Spanish surrealist and majic realist work. Also, Joan Miro was well aware of Haitian Voodoo art and Cuban Santeria religion through his travels before going into exile. This led to his signature style of art making.
Miró's oft-quoted interest in the assassination of painting is derived from a dislike of bourgeois art of any kind, used as a way to promote propaganda and cultural identity among the wealthy. Specifically, Miró responded to Cubism in this way, which by the time of his quote had become an established art form in France. He is quoted as saying "I will break their guitar," referring to Picasso's paintings, with the intent to attack the popularity and appropriation of Picasso's art by politics. Like most famous artists, Miro paintings were seen as original and Joan Miro wanted to keep his integrity whilst becoming jealous of those who he saw as too mainstream.
Joan Miró i Ferrà won several awards in his lifetime. In 1954 he was given the Venice Biennale print making prize, in 1958 the Guggenheim International Award, and in 1980 he received the Gold Medal of Fine Arts from King Juan Carlos of Spain. In 1981, the Palma de Mallorca City Council established the Fundació Pilar i Joan Miró a Mallorca, housed in the four studios that Miró had donated for the purpose.
He died bedridden at his home in Palma, Mallorca on December 25, 1983. Miro suffered from heart disease and had visited a clinic for respiratory problems two weeks before his death.
Many of his pieces are exhibited today in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC and Fundació Joan Miró in Montjuïc, Barcelona; his body is buried nearby, at the Montjuïc cemetery. Today, Miró's paintings sell for between US$250,000 and US$17 million; the latter was the auction price for the La Caresse des étoiles on May 6, 2008 and is the highest amount paid for one of his works. It seems likely that Miro paintings will remain popular for many years to come, in line with the continued popularity of contemporary and abstract art as a whole. Joan Miro is still seen as a figure head of these art movements mentioned previously.



