Description
Joan Miró was still a young man when he moved to Paris in 1920. He was born in Barcelona in 1893 and received an early introduction to the arts, taking up art classes from the age of 7. By 1912, he had already abandoned his business school education and clerk’s position—allegedly due to a nervous breakdown, a bout of typhoid fever, or both—to study at a local painter’s school.
He favored the work of the Post-Impressionists and Fauves, and his early paintings were characterized by vivid, brushy landscapes, portraits, and still lifes. In 1918, the art dealer Josep Dalmau gave him his first solo exhibition. Around that time, he began to focus more on line, form, and structure. Informed by the folk art and Romanesque frescoes of the so-called “Catalan primitives,” his compositions became more direct and clear, often homing in on a few fine details.
