The Fundació Joan Miró is one of Barcelona's best-loved museums. The artist himself wanted it, to bring the public, especially young people, closer to contemporary art, and it opened in 1975 in Montjuïc park.
Joan Miró
Joan Miró (1893-1983) was born in Barcelona, in the Passatge del Crèdit near Plaça de Sant Jaume. The landscape of Mont-roig del Camp, near Tarragona, where his family had a farm, marked his painting for ever, as The Farm (1921-1922), bought by Ernest Hemingway, shows. In 1920s Paris he joined the Surrealists and created a highly personal language of signs, stars, moons, eyes, birds and female figures, with pure colours and a strong poetic and ironic sense. During the civil war he painted dramatic works and the large mural The Reaper for the Republic's pavilion in Paris, next to Guernica. From 1956 he lived in Palma de Mallorca, home to his studio and the Pilar and Joan Miró Foundation. See modern art in Spain.
The building
The museum was designed by the architect Josep Lluís Sert, Miró's friend and an exile in the United States, who had already designed his studio in Palma. It is a white, Mediterranean building with courtyards, terraces and vaulted skylights bringing natural light into the galleries, considered one of the most successful museums of the twentieth century.
The collections
The foundation holds over 14,000 works, including more than 200 paintings, sculptures, textiles, ceramics, prints and thousands of drawings. Highlights include the Foundation's great tapestry, paintings from the 1920s and 1930s, works related to the Constellations series, the large black-and-white canvases of the 1970s such as the Burnt Canvases, and bronze sculptures. The foundation also houses Alexander Calder's Mercury Fountain, created for the Spanish Republic's pavilion at the 1937 Paris Exposition to recall the siege of the Almadén mines. The sculpture garden shows works by Miró and others, and the Espai 13 space is devoted to young artists.
Miró around the city
Miró's works are all over Barcelona: the mosaic on the Rambla, set in the pavement near the Liceu, which passers-by walk over unaware; the large sculpture Dona i ocell (Woman and Bird) in Joan Miró park; the airport mural; and the logo of the "la Caixa" bank, which he designed.
Practical information
The foundation is open every day except Monday and some holidays. Reach it by the Montjuïc funicular from Paral·lel station or by bus. Its terrace offers fine views over the city. See also Barcelona's museums.