In 1924, this became the Surrealist group centered on the poet Andre Breton. When Miro moved into the studio of Pau Gargallo on the rue Blomet in Paris, he came in contact with the poets and artists belonging to a group that had arisen from Dadaism. It is not an impression of this well-loved place, but something more like a condensed version. Miró’s great achievement is to make this detail succinct and absolutely clear. The dog barks at the moon in a way seen in a later painting. Miró told a journalist in 1928, ‘ The Farm was a résumé of my entire life in the country.’ It shows the outbuildings at Mont-roig, with domestic animals, crops and equipment.

He boxed with Hemingway as well as having him to stay at Mont-roig, the place outside Tarragona depicted in astonishing detail in The Farm. While Miró’s friendships among the Surrealists in Paris are well-known, it is perhaps a little more unexpected that he was close to Hemingway and knew a cross-section of the famous British and American ex-patriates. It is now in the National Gallery of Art in Washington (which is also the final venue of this exhibition) as a gift of the widow of the American writer Ernest Hemingway. One of the works that most perplexed people was The Farm, that Miró made during 1920-1 and would always consider his first masterpiece. Niood lists the 10 Most Famous Artworks of Joan Miro: 1. In numerous interviews dating from the 1930s onwards, Miró expressed contempt for conventional painting methods as a way of supporting bourgeois society, and declared an “assassination of painting” in favour of upsetting the visual elements of established painting. His difficult to classify works also had a manifestation of Catalan pride. He was notable for his interest in the unconscious or the subconscious mind, reflected in his re-creation of the childlike.

Joan Miró i Ferrà was a Spanish painter, sculptor and ceramicist born in Barcelona.Įarning international acclaim, his work has been interpreted as Surrealism but with a personal style, sometimes also veering into Fauvism and Expressionism. You can also read this article in French or in Spanish.

Miro painting