Best Known For: Catalan painter Joan Miró combined abstract art
with Surrealist fantasy to create his lithographs, murals,
tapestries, and sculptures for public spaces. Born to the
families of a goldsmith and a cabinet-maker, he grew up in the
Barri Gòtic neighborhood of Barcelona. His father was Miquel
Miró Adzerias and his mother was Dolores Ferrà. He began drawing
classes at the age of seven at a private school at Carrer del
Regomir 13, a medieval mansion. In 1907 he enrolled at the fine
art academy at La Llotja, to the dismay of his father. He
studied at the Cercle Artístic de Sant Lluc and he had his first
solo show in 1918 at the Dalmau Gallery, where his work was
ridiculed and defaced. Inspired by Cubist and surrealist
exhibitions from abroad, Miró was drawn towards the arts
community that was gathering in Montparnasse and in 1920 moved
to Paris, but continued to spend his summers in Catalonia. He
said, “The painting rises from the brushstrokes as a poem rises
from the words. The meaning comes later.”