This exhibition offers a journey through Miró’s life and shows a set of works that illustrate the artist’s career in the fields of painting, engraving and illustrated books. All of them are related to the artist’s interest in literature and to the friendship he kept up throughout his life with writers, poets and some of the leading European publishers of the last century.

Joan Miró (Barcelona, 1893 – Palma de Mallorca, 1983), a world-famous maestro of contemporary art, is one of the leading figures in the change of direction that took place in the history of art in the early 20th century. Alongside painting, literature was an important part of his life and his body of work. The painter declared: “I make no distinction between painting and poetry.”

From the 1920s onwards, Miró included poetry in his creations, in the form of words or texts. Even the titles of his works often included poetic references: El vol de l’alosa (‘The Flight of the Lark’), Quelques fleurs pour des amis (‘Some Flowers for Friends’) or Maravillas con variaciones acrósticas en el jardín de Miró (‘Wonders with Acrostic Variations in Miró’s Garden’).

On the other hand, from 1925 he was introduced to a large number of poets and literati by painter André Masson. Miró illustrated several texts, not only by surrealist friends like René Char, André Breton, Paul Éluard, Michel Leiris and Tristan Tzara, but also by authors rediscovered by them. This connection bore fruit in his graphic work: Miró produced two hundred and sixty-two illustrated books.

His love for books led him to work closely with publishers, becoming close friends with some of them.

Many of the works displayed in this exhibition were dedicated to Joan Miró’s friends.