Joan Miró
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Joan Miró | |
 Joan Miró photo taken by Carl Van Vechten, June, 1935 |
|
| Born | April 20, 1893 Barcelona, Spain |
| Died | December 25, 1983 |
| Nationality | Spanish |
| Field | painting, sculpture, and ceramics |
Joan Miró i Ferrà (April 20, 1893 – December 25, 1983) was an ethnic Catalan (of Spanish nationality) painter, sculptor and ceramicist born in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain.
Earning international acclaim, his work has been interpreted as Surrealism, a sandbox for the subconscious mind, a re-creation of the childlike, and a manifestation of Catalan pride. In numerous interviews dating from the 1930s onwards, Miró expressed contempt for conventional painting methods as a way of supporting bourgeoise society, and famously declared an "assassination of painting" in favor of upsetting the visual elements of established painting.[2]
Contents |
[edit] Biography
Born to the family of a goldsmith and watchmaker, the young Miró was drawn towards the arts community that was gathering in Montparnasse and in 1920 moved to Paris. There, under the influence of the poets and writers, he developed his unique style: organic forms and flattened picture planes drawn with a sharp line. Generally thought of as a Surrealist because of his interest in automatism and the use of sexual symbols (for example, ovoids with wavy lines emanating from them), Miró’s style was influenced in varying degrees by Surrealism and Dada, yet he rejected membership to any artistic movement in the interwar European years. André Breton, the founder of Surrealism, described him as "the most Surrealist of us all." Miró confessed to creating one of his most famous works, Harlequin's Carnival, under similar circumstances:
- "How did I think up my drawings and my ideas for painting? Well I'd come home to my Paris studio in Rue Blomet at night, I'd go to bed, and sometimes I hadn't any supper. I saw things, and I jotted them down in a notebook. I saw shapes on the ceiling..."[3]
[edit] Career
In 1926, he collaborated with Max Ernst on designs for Sergei Diaghilev. With Miró's help, Ernst pioneered the technique of grattage, in which he troweled pigment onto his canvases. Miró married Pilar Juncosa in Palma de Mallorca on October 12, 1929; their daughter Dolores was born July 17, 1931. Shuzo Takiguchi published the first monograph on Miró in 1940. In 1959, André Breton asked Miró to represent Spain in The Homage to Surrealism exhibition together with works by Enrique Tábara, Salvador Dalí, and Eugenio Granell.
Miró dabbled in architecture when he designed the Maeght Foundation museum in Saint-Paul-en-Forêt, France, which was completed in 1964.[verification needed]
[edit] Experimental style
Miró was the first artist to develop automatic drawing as a way to undo previous established techniques in painting, and thus, with Andre Masson, represented the beginning of Surrealism as an art movement. However, Miró chose not to become an official member of the Surrealists in order to be free to experiment with other artistic styles without compromising his position within the group. He pursued his own interests in the art world, ranging from automatic drawing and surrealism, to expressionism and Color Field painting.
Miró's oft-quoted interest in the assassination of painting is derived from a dislike of bourgeoise 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. [1]
In an interview with biographer Walter Erben, Miró expressed his dislike for art critics, saying, they are more concerned with being philosophers than anything else. They form a preconceived opinion, then they look at the work of art. Painting merely serves as a cloak in which to wrap their emaciated philosophical systems.[citation needed]
Four-dimensional painting is a theoretical type of painting Miró proposed in which painting would transcend its two-dimensionality and even the three-dimensionality of sculpture.
In his final decades Miró accelerated his work in different media producing hundreds of ceramics, including the Wall of the Moon and Wall of the Sun at the UNESCO building in Paris. He also made temporary window paintings (on glass) for an exhibit. In the last years of his life Miró wrote his most radical and least known ideas, exploring the possibilities of gas sculpture and four-dimensional painting.
He died bedridden, at his home in Palma, Mallorca on December 25, 1983. He suffered from heart disease, and had visited a clinic for respiratory problems two weeks before his death.[4] Many of his pieces are exhibited today in the Fundació Joan Miró in Montjuïc, Barcelona and the U.S. National Gallery in Washington, D.C.; he is buried nearby, at the Montjuïc cemetery. Today, his paintings sell for between US$250,000 and US$17 million, which was the auction price for the La Caresse des etoiles on May 6, 2008 and is the highest amount paid for one of Miró's works. [5]
[edit] Awards
Joan Miró won several awards in his lifetime. In 1958 he was given the Venice Biennale print making prize, in May 1959 the Guggenheim International Award, and in 1980 he received the Gold Medal of Fine Arts from King Juan Carlos of Spain.
[edit] In pop culture
Joan Miró is mentioned in Paulo Coelho's 'Eleven Minutes', several times in the fourth section of the novel, and twice towards the end. The protagonist of "Eleven Minutes" relates his style of art to that of Miró's.
A statue of Miró's is found on the campus of Springfield University in The Simpsons's episode "That 90s Show."
Miró's work is referenced in the Music Video for Steely Dan's New Frontier."
He inspired the naming of the Miró quartet, one of America's highest-profile chamber groups, which was founded at the Oberlin Conservatory in 1995
[edit] Late life
Miró received a Doctor Honoris Causa in 1979 from the University of Barcelona. He died in Majorca in 1983.[6]
[edit] References
- ^ Spector, Nancy. "The Tilled Field, 1923-1924". Guggenheim display caption. Retrieved on May 30, 2008.
- ^ M. Rowell, Joan Mirό: Selected Writings and Interviews (London: Thames & Hudson, 1987) pp. 114-116.
- ^ Janis Mink, Miró (Los Angeles: Taschen, 2003), p. 43.
- ^ "Joan Miro dies in Spain at 90" (December 26 1983). New York Times: 41.
- ^ Afp.google.com, Monet fetches record price at New York auction
- ^ Joan Miró (Spanish), 1893-1983: Featured artist works, exhibitions and biography fromWalton Fine Arts
[edit] External links
