Surrealism

Joan Miró
1893-1983
painter and sculptor

After having first working as an accountant for a couple of fraught years, Joan Miró decides to turn to painting.  From 1918 he develops a style that is rather 'naive' and détailliste. Two years later he makes his first sojourn to Paris, and would often return to work there throughout his life. His oeuvre gradually distances itself from this early meticulous realism, the change much owing to his association with the surrealist group. As a wink to Miró, who in 1925 paints Ceci est la couleur de mes rêves, Magritte in 1929 completes The Treachery of Images depicting a pipe with, written below, the phrase 'Ceci n'est pas une pipe'. In contrast to Miró who underscores the sense of wonder with a title that reinforces the scintillating blue of his painting, Magritte at once creates a visual and cognitive shock by the apparent non-sense that exists between image and text. Outbreak of civil war in Spain in 1936 forces Miró to settle in Paris.  Five years later, the MoMA in New York mounts the first grand retrospective of his work. After WWII, Miró creates a very diverse body of work, including painting, sculpture, ceramic work and frescoes.