Joan Mir

About
He was a Spanish painter, sculptor and ceramicist
Born: 20 April 1893 in Barcelona, Spain
Died: 25 December 1983 in Palma de Mallorca, Spain

During his 90 years he made at least 2,000 oil paintings, 500 sculptures, 400 ceramic
objects, and 5,000 drawings and collages.
Using lithography, etching and other graphic techniques he created about 3,500
images, which were mostly published in editions of fifty to seventy-five they all
contained something of Mirs Catalan home.
His Early Life
Mirs parents had an extremely low opinion of the profession of painting pictures
He started drawing classes at the age of seven
He took annual trips to his beloved home of Catalonia where he was free to observe the
land and had a lot of time to draw.
He attended La Escuela de la Lonja- famous art academy that Picasso ha attended only 9
years earlier
He later attended The Gal Academy
Professors at both schools taught him an invaluable lesson about mastering form
where he had to draw an object that he held behind his back based on tactile
impressions alone.
 His Personality
Mir was the picture of bourgeois [middle class] reserved correctness
His native Catalonia moulded his spiritual life and reserved personality through its traditions,
landscape and art.
He spoke very little; he spoke a little about his projects but stopped there
Clement Greenberg (art critic) speaking on the time he met Mir: A short, compact, rather
dapper man in a dark blue business suit. He has a neat round head with closely trimmed dark
hair, pale skin, small, regular features, quick eyes and movements. He is slightly nervous and at
the same time impersonal in the company of strangers, and his conversation and manner are
non-committal to an extreme.
Mir does become intimate with his audience through his paintings, which are full are sex,
humour, nature, excrement, playfulness, and sometimes fear and anger.
JOAN MIRS
WORK
 He expanded painting to the point where it intersects with the realm of poetry
Primitivism- used as inspiration in order to avoid traditional academic forms
Mirs early work is caged in by his knowledge of contemporary art- he read the poems, art criticism and
articles in avant-garde Catalan and French magazines.
Inspired by Fauvism (group of expressive colourists)
Abstract contrasting of colours
Detailistic phase
[the] joy at learning to understand a tiny blade of grass in a landscape. Why belittle it? a blade of
grass is as enchanting as a tree or a mountain.
The Waggon Tracks 1918
Mixture of stylized angular shapes and realistically painted objects The Table (Still Life With Rabbit) 1920
Art using basic geometric forms + and balance in compositions
Most famous painting- The Farm 1921/22
Romanesque- size of various details are not in proportion but rather reflect their importance to Mir
Quite architectural
Dominated by the light
Distorted beings and symbols
 The Table (Still Life With Rabbit)
Joan Mir
1920

The Waggon Tracks

Joan Mir
1918
The Farm
Joan Mir
1921/22
 Mir took the less is more approach with some of his paintings The Hunter 1923/24
He came up with some of his ideas during hunger hallucinations including Harlequins Carnival
1924/25
He used many things in his work including:
accidental form- letting the pencil or brush wander over a pictorial ground without a goal in
mind.
abstract forms
Lines - dotted, solid, curved and straight Landscape (The Hare) 1927
Soft and organic forms
Spatial compositions
Two dimensional objects / flat surfaces
Collages of objects using their silhouettes Painting 1933
Poetic artwork - Photo- that is the Colour of my Dreams 1925
Mir was synonymous with freedom
Wild paintings- made around the time of the Spanish civil war
Woman 1934
Science- fiction like landscape and window-less interior spaces The Farmers Meal 1935
Use of rope in Mirs symbol of violence
Rope and People I 1935
The Hunter
Joan Mir
1923/24

Harlequins Carnival
Joan Mir
1924/25
 Photo- that is the
Colour of my Dreams
Joan Mir
1925

Painting
Landscape (The Hare) Joan Mir
Joan Mir 1933
1927
 Rope and People I
Joan Mir
1935

Woman The Farmers Meal

Joan Mir
Joan Mir
1935
1934
 Still life work
Considered one of his most important paintings = Still Life with Old Shoe 1937
Constellations- a series of 23 gouaches and turpentine-colour paintings on paper, e.g.- Ciphers and
Constellations, in Love with a Woman 1941
He experimented with rougher materials during the war as shortages forced him to be more experimental
In his later life, he wanted to go beyond painting while at the same time get closer to the common people
through painting
He worked with ceramics, printing and sculptor
His work is described as quite playful
He painted murals
He designed ceramic walls for buildings
He created the Sun Wall and the Moon Wall 1955-1958 for the UNESCO building in Paris.
Sculptures- sometimes cast in bronze- took him back to the idea of individual items being very meaningful
Mixture of objects and bright colours Woman and Bird 1967
Monumental tributes to Majorcan folk art Solar Bird and Lunar Bird 1966
Inspired by his own paintings Figure 1970
Blue I-III triptych 1961
Emptier, like space / a flying saucer
He had been deeply influenced by abstract expressionism
 Ciphers and Constellations, in
Love with a Woman
Joan Mir
1941

Still Life with Old Shoe

Joan Mir
1937
Sun Wall Solar Bird

Moon Wall Woman and Bird

Joan Mir Joan Mir
1937 1967
Lunar Bird
Joan Mir
1966
 Blue I Blue II

Blue I-III
Joan Mir
Figure 1961
Joan Mir
1970

Blue III
Bibliography

Remer, A (2017) Joan Mir Artist Overview and Analysis. In: TheArtStory.org [online] At:
http://www.theartstory.org/artist-miro-joan.htm [Accessed 28 Oct 2017]

Mink, J. (2006) Joan Mir, 1893-1983. Los Angeles, Calif.: Taschen GmbH