A Day in Barcelona: MIRÓ & PICASSO
It is 50-years since Spanish artist Pablo Picasso died, in Mougins, France on 8 April 1973. In Barcelona a unique exhibition 'Miro-Picasso' celebrates his friendship with Catalan artist Joan Miró.
Joan Miró_The Farm_1921 - 1922_Oil on canvas 132,8 x 141,3_Successió Miró, 2023
In Barcelona, at the Museu Picasso (celebrating its sixtieth anniversary) and at the Fundació Joan Miró, a joint project Miró-Picasso (until 25.02.2024) is taking place simultaneously to bring together works by Picasso with the art of his great friend, Barcelona-born Joan Miró (1893-1983). It is part of the ‘Picasso Celebration 1973-2023’. And, 2023 is the fortieth anniversary of the death of Miró, aged 90 on 25 December 1983. With so many relevant anniversaries it is timely that the good friends share this collaborative survey of what they both achieved. They first met in Barcelona in 1917 and during a 50-year friendship shared many interests. Both artists chose Barcelona to bequeath works of art, to be displayed in their monographic art galleries. This exhibition is created around six chronological periods, which has brought together over 250-loans from public and private collections, to make Miró-Picasso a unique event. Two main themes run through the show: around their friendship, illustrated through artworks and documents, and secondly their affinity with the city of Barcelona, realised in the creation of two monographic museums.
Much has been written on Pablo Picasso during this commemorative year. He was born in Malaga, Andalusia, and lived for a short time in Barcelona before moving more permanently to Paris in 1904. Barcelona at the turn of the century was full of young, avant-garde artists, usually hanging out at Els Quatre Gats café - a place to visit when you are in the city - but Paris was the main draw for Picasso, who joined Catalan friends living there in 1900 before his permanent move.
Joan Miró’s career as an artist began in earnest in 1911, while working as a bookkeeper. He suffered a minor nervous breakdown suffering depression, followed by typhoid fever. He was sent to recuperate at his family’s extensive farmhouse, Mas Miró, situated between the sea and the mountains near the village of Mont-Roig, about 121 kms (70 miles) west of Barcelona. Miró was destined by his father to be a businessman but the breakdown and illness gave the opportunity to study and practice art as a profession instead. The farmhouse was where he decided to dedicate himself to painting. Today, one can visit the studio-workshop and the house and outbuildings, to see the places he painted. It generates a clear perception of the artist who stated that all his work was conceived in Mas Miró.
The village of Mont-Roig appears in works too, such as Village and Church of Mont-Roig, 1919 (Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona) but, it is The Farm (La Masia), 1921-22 (National Gallery of Art, Washington DC), both works in this exhibition, that summarizes this important period in Miró’s life, the final work before his breakaway from works of realism to not working from nature. As Miró put it ‘I wanted to put an end to that whole period I could see so clearly from Mont-Roig, and I painted The Farm… [It] was the summation of my whole life in the country.’ The large painting depicts not the family house but the house of the tenant farmworkers adjacent to it and the farm buildings that include a chicken coop and water reservoir, the workers, their children, the animals, the farm implements, and richly tilled red earth. A eucalyptus tree, a visual celebration of Catalonia is at the centre. It was exhibited at the Salon d’Automne in Paris. The painting did not sell. At one point it was suggested to him to divide the canvas into eight pieces, to retail separately. Miró refused. Earnest Hemingway bought it in 1923. The painting is a great highlight of Miró-Picasso.
Picasso returned to Barcelona in 1917 – where he met Miró - with the Ballets Russes when they were touring Spain. He designed a stage curtain for the surrealist ballet Parade. What this exhibition reveals is how Picasso seemingly moved so effortlessly between cubism, abstraction, figurative painting and classicism. Works in the show reflect his extraordinary ability to adapt to new ideas, new concepts. He took lessons on how to create ceramic works too, for which Miró was a great source for advice, being an inspirational creator of ceramic murals. This is shown to great effect in the Miró-Picasso exhibition.
Beyond 1923 Miró turned toward abstraction and surrealism, and the exhibition puts together Picasso and Miró’s art that shows how closely and how differently each artist worked. It is a fitting finale to the ‘Picasso Celebration 1973-2023’.
TEXT © Rosalind Ormiston 28 November 2023.
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Websites for info:
Miró-Picasso | Exhibition | Picasso Museum (museupicassobcn.cat)
Miró-Picasso | Exhibitions | Fundació Joan Miró (fMiróbcn.org)
The exhibition catalogue, Miró-Picasso, 2023, is excellent. It is published by Fundació Museu Picasso de Barcelona, & Fundació Joan Miró, and available in Catalan, Spanish, French and English.
Catalan ISBN: 978-84-16411-72-6
Spanish ISBN: 978-84-16411-71-9
French ISBN: 978-84-16411-73-3
English ISBN: 978-84-16411-74-0
Image: Joan Miró The Farm (La Masia), 1921-22 (National Gallery of Art, Washington DC) copyright Museu Picasso, Barcelona, Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona.