Joan Miró

Joan Miró (Barcelona, Spain, 1893—Palma, Spain 1983) is a ground-breaking figure in 20th century art, famous for his declaration of the need to assassinate painting as a result of his dislike of bourgeois art. Born in Barcelona, he briefly studied business before dedicating himself to art. He initially created works inspired by Fauvism and Expressionism before going to Paris for the first time in 1920. There he met artists including André Masson, Max Ernst, and Jean Arp and began to create the Surrealist-inspired works for which he is best known, featuring expressive color, biomorphic shapes, curving lines, and his pictorial sign language. After fleeing the Nazis and returning to Spain in the early 1940s, he worked on his famous Constellation series, consisting of dots representing stars and imagery such as women, birds, and the moon. Miró began to gain international acclaim as a result of a 1941 retrospective of his work at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and his inclusion in the 1947 International Surrealist Exhibition in Paris, ultimately having a great influence on the Abstract Expressionists, who likewise impacted his later works. He also created prints, tapestries, murals, sculpture, and over 250 illustrated books.