Considered one of the great artist 20th century, Joan Miró has bequeathed us a definitive body of work whose influence has continued to grow over the years.
Miró did not paint dreams but instead, through his works, provided the spectator with certain elements so that so that he would be the one that dreamed. He never worked under the influence of hypnosis, drugs or alcohol. Nevertheless, his artistic personality and the way he represented on canvas what inspiration dictated to him led André Breton to exclaim: Miró is the most surrealist of us all.
A creative force in the plastic field who felt an equal passion for the word, for the most daring poetic plays, a lover of objetcs and the bare truth of materials, Miró always revealed himself as an oneiric artist, a seeker after the constellations that inspired some of his finest workd.
Jacques Dupin the main authority in ´Miró work details all of those items in his amazing essay: The birth of signs.

The Joan Miró Foundation was the first public institution set up in Barcelona to focus entirely on contemporary art.Joan Miró and Josep Lluís Sert––its designer––,a founder member of GATCPAC (a leading group in the introduction of the Modern architecture in Catalonia),had first met in 1932 and became close friends working both for the Spanish (Republican) Pavilion at the Paris World Fair in 1937.After the first big retrospective of the work of Joan Miró in Barcelona (1968),the artist had decided to set up a building to make his work accessible to the public on a permanent basis.Sert was commissioned,and created an open-plan structure where the interior space communicated with the exterior,producing a perfect balance between architecture and landscape.From these dates,the Foundation was expanded two times,and the architect commissioned to carry out this task was Jaume Freixa, a pupil of Sert's who had worked with him for eleven years at Harvard and had played an active part in the creation of the Foundation.

A key figure in 20th-century art, Joan Miró has left us a definitive oeuvre which continues to reach an increasingly wide public. This book is a partial recompilation of the analyses contained in the author’s first far-reaching study on Joan Miró, which appeared in 1961, now considerably reworked and enriched. It takes into account not only the painter’s output during the last two decades of his life and studies by art historians and exhibition organizers published over the last thirty years, but also a great number of documents discovered after Miró’s death —projects, sketchpads, texts, correspondence— to which Jacques Dupin has had access thanks to his privileged relationship with the artist's family. This is, then, a completely revised and updated edition of the 1993 edition published to mark the hundredth anniversary of Joan Miró’s birth. One of Joan Miró’s friends and collaborators since 1956, Jacques Dupin has organized numerous exhibitions devoted to Miró and edited the catalogue raisonné of the artist’s pictorial work.

The research for this catalogue raisonné of paintings began in 1957.The artist himself and later the Miró estate were largely involved in its preparation. This catalogue of paintings has been established by Jacques Dupin, Ariane Lelong- Mainaud and Joan Punyet Miró. The catalogue includes all the artist’s oils, acrylics, and works in various media on canvas, cardboard, wood, masonite, copper and other hard supports. In the six volumes -all published only in english- all paintings are reproduced in color, whenever possible, accompanied by their title, date, technique, and dimensions, with indication of signature and inscriptions on the back, as well as their collection, provenance, important exhibitions and major publications in which they are reproduced.

The research for this catalogue raisonné of paintings began in 1957.The artist himself and later the Miró estate were largely involved in its preparation.This catalogue of paintings has been established by Jacques Dupin, Ariane Lelong- Mainaud and Joan Punyet Miró. The catalogue includes all the artist’s oils, acrylics, and works in various media on canvas, cardboard, wood, masonite, copper and other hard supports. In the six volumes -all published only in english- all paintings are reproduced in color, whenever possible, accompanied by their title, date, technique, and dimensions, with indication of signature and inscriptions on the back, as well as their collection, provenance, important exhibitions and major publications in which they are reproduced.

The research for this catalogue raisonné of paintings began in 1957.The artist himself and later the Miró estate were largely involved in its preparation.This catalogue of paintings has been established by Jacques Dupin, Ariane Lelong- Mainaud and Joan Punyet Miró. The catalogue includes all the artist’s oils, acrylics, and works in various media on canvas, cardboard, wood, masonite, copper and other hard supports. In the six volumes -all published only in english-; all paintings are reproduced in color, whenever possible, accompanied by their title, date, technique, and dimensions, with indication of signature and inscriptions on the back, as well as their collection, provenance, important exhibitions and major publications in which they are reproduced.

The research for this catalogue raisonné of paintings began in 1957. The artist himself and later the Miró estate were largely involved in its preparation.This catalogue of paintings has been established by Jacques Dupin, Ariane Lelong- Mainaud and Joan Punyet Miró. The catalogue includes all the artist’s oils, acrylics, and works in various media on canvas, cardboard, wood, masonite, copper and other hard supports. In the six volumes -all published only in english- all paintings are reproduced in color, whenever possible, accompanied by their title, date, technique, and dimensions, with indication of signature and inscriptions on the back, as well as their collection, provenance, important exhibitions and major publications in which they are reproduced.

The most important aspect of the Joan Miró Foundation’s collections is without doubt its valuable stock of works consisting in over 14,000 items. Most of this collection was donated to the Foundation by Joan Miró himself. Other pieces have come from the collections owned by Pilar Juncosa,the artist’s wife,and Joan Prats,his close friend and the driving force behind the idea of setting up the Foundation.
The Foundation has a large collection of paintings from all the different periods of Miró’s life.The works exhibited show the development of his art from his training in Barcelona and first contacts with the avant-gardes in the early twentieth century,the time spent in Paris and his links with the Surrealists. Miró’s art in the last years of his life was mainly expressed in large-format paintings and denotes a deeper interest in pure colour and in gesture,but without abandoning his lyricism and compositional rigour.It is precisely this period that is most widely represented here,since he donated to the Foundation the works that were in his studio when it was set up. This guidebook is the main tool to achieve to the highlights of the Foundation’s collections.

The research for this catalogue raisonné of paintings began in 1957.The artist himself and later the Miró estate were largely involved in its preparation.This catalogue of paintings has been established by Jacques Dupin, Ariane Lelong- Mainaud and Joan Punyet Miró. The catalogue includes all the artist’s oils, acrylics, and works in various media on canvas, cardboard, wood, masonite, copper and other hard supports. In the six volumes -all published only in english- all paintings are reproduced in color, whenever possible, accompanied by their title, date, technique, and dimensions, with indication of signature and inscriptions on the back, as well as their collection, provenance, important exhibitions and major publications in which they are reproduced.

The research for this catalogue raisonné of paintings began in 1957.The artist himself and later the Miró estate were largely involved in its preparation.This catalogue of paintings has been established by Jacques Dupin, Ariane Lelong- Mainaud and Joan Punyet Miró. The catalogue includes all the artist’s oils, acrylics, and works in various media on canvas, cardboard, wood, masonite, copper and other hard supports. In the six volumes -all published only in english- all paintings are reproduced in color, whenever possible, accompanied by their title, date, technique, and dimensions, with indication of signature and inscriptions on the back, as well as their collection, provenance, important exhibitions and major publications in which they are reproduced.