Joan Mir—


Joan Mir— (April 20, 1893 - December 25, 1983) was a Catalan painter,
sculptor and ceramist born in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain.

Drawn to the artistic community gathering in Montparnasse, in 1920 he moved
to Paris, where, under the influence of Surrealist poets and writers he
developed his unique style. His surrealist works are considered amongst the
most original of the 20th century.

In 1926, he collaborated with Max Ernst on designs for Sergei Diaghilev.
With Mir—'s help, Max Ernst pioneered grattage in which he troweled
pigment from his canvases.

Mir— married Pilar Juncosa in Palma de Mallorca on October 12, 1929.

One of the most radical of surrealist theorists (the founder of surrealism,
AndrŽ Breton, would describe Mir— as "the most surrealist of us all"), Mir—
expressed his contempt for painting (at least as conventionally thought of)
and his desire to "murder" and "assassinate" it in favor of new means of
expression, in numerous writings and interviews from the 1930s on.

Shuzo Takiguchi published the first monography on Mir— in 1940.

Joan Mir— won the 1954 Venice Biennale printmaking prize.

In his final decades Mir— accelerated his work in different media, producing
for instance hundreds of ceramics, including the Wall of the Moon and Wall
of the Sun at the UNESCO building in Paris.

In the last years of his life Mir— wrote his most radical and least-known
ideas, exploring the possibilities of gas sculpture and four dimensional
painting.

Joan Mir— died in Mallorca, Spain, and was interred in the Montjuic cemetery
in Barcelona.

Today, his paintings sell between US$250,000 and US$8 million. Many of his
works are exhibited in the Fundaci— Joan Mir— in Barcelona.