Joan Miró was a Spanish artist born in 1893 in Barcelona. Early in life he showed a strong interest in art but his father wanted him to become a jeweler. He took art lessons as a child but was forced to work in a drug warehouse as a teenager, which made him very unhappy. After becoming ill with typhus, his parents allowed him to pursue art. He studied under unconventional teachers in Barcelona and then traveled to Paris where he developed his own symbolic style using simple colors, lines, and shapes to represent objects rather than copying reality. Later in life he had his own studio in Mallorca where he continued experimenting with new materials and larger formats like tapestries and ceramics. He is

1. My Oral
Presentation
By: Beltrán Laferrère
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2. His life
His parents were Miquel
Miró and Dolors Ferrà.
He had a sister.
Joan Miró was
born in
Barcelona,
Spain in the year
1893.
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3. Early steps in art...
 Very early in his life, Joan demonstrated two
things to his parents: first, that when he
wanted something he would not give in; and
second, that whenever he got hold of a piece
of paper and some coloured pencils he would
spend hours and hours drawing pictures and,
above all, combining colours.
 His father wanted Joan to carry on his
jeweller’s trade. Since the boy enjoyed
drawing, his father took him to take lessons
at some arts and crafts school, so that later
he would be able to help him design beautiful
pieces of jewellery. Joan was only seven at
the time he started drawing lessons at a
school nearby his house.
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4. As he grew up…
 Joan grew up, and his interest in
everything artistic remained as strong
as ever.
 His father decided that if Joan was to
be successful, he had to attend the
School of Commerce, where he would
learn the basic things that would help
him to defend himself in business.
 Also Joan attended the Llotja (the
school which all would-be artists went
to).
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5. His father had other plans...
 When Joan was sixteen, his father forced him to
work as a shop assistant in a drug-warehouse.
Joan didn´t like working there, but his father
didn’t allow him to resign. He worked there two
years, and he was so unhappy that he got very
sick with typhus.
 His parents, very worried, decided to send him to
Montroig to recover, but first they promised him
they would never stand in his way again or stop
him from becoming an artist. So he must have
been quite happy in spite of his illness.
 Certainly, this decision did him more good than
all the medicines the doctor had prescribed, and
he left in a happy mood for that little village in the
province of Terragona.
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6. Joan inspires in nature...
 A few days after his arrival he felt better
already; he could take walks and wander
through the fields, talking to the farmers
and enjoying the light. He observed the
nice little vegetable gardens, the cows,
the donkeys, and all the nature around
him.
 With great enthusiasm, he began to paint
everything around him, and doing what
he liked to do, he got better and better
and was soon able to return to 6

7. Painting Fields in Terragona
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8. Studies: Un-conventional
education
 When he returned to Barcelona he
entered a school belonging to a
teacher called Francesc Galí. That
school was very different from others.
The schoolmaster, Mr. Galí,
blindfolded him and made him touch
an object –a water pitcher, a piece of
fruit, a face- and then asked him to
draw it. Besides the fun, it taught Miró
a lot of things that later proved useful.
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9. Studies: Conventional
education
 Besides attending classes at Galí’s
school, he attended classes at the
Artistic Circle Saint Luc, where
painting was taught in yet another way
and where he made friends who
helped him understand a great deal.
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10. Paris
 He travelled to Paris and started
painting in the way other artists did
and copying the style of the latest
tendencies, like representing
geometrical figures.
 But after a while he started to think
that “copying” reality was flat and
boring.
 And he watched how we start drawing
when we are little children.
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11. Going back to the basics
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Look at these faces. Some
have simpler lines. Others
have lots of details.

12. Starting all over again...
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Look at these trees. Although some of
them do not look alike a real tree, we
understand they are trees. Because
they all represent a tree.

13. The art of Representation
 So, Joan Miró discovered that it was more
powerful to represent a face than coping
exactly a face from real life. It was more
interesting to represent a tree that coping it.
 And that representation became symbols...
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14. The use of symbols
 And those symbols became powerful and
had so much strength that observers
reacted to them.
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15. The use of colour
 By simplifying his art, he also
simplified the use of colours. He
started using clean bright and plain
colours.
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16. His own studio
 Miró started selling his art very well and he became a
famous artist.
 In 1956 his dream came true. He finally settled down in
a studio of his own in the Island of Majorca.
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17. New materials
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There he continued experimenting with new materials and in bigger
formats.

18. Tapestries
 By touching new materials he experimented
with tapestries. He did a series of huge,
gorgeous tapestries.
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19. Ceramics
 As he was also curious about the touch of
soils and clay, he produced wonderful
pieces of ceramics.
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20. Sculptures
 Miró had great love for his country, so as a
present to his country he made beautiful
sculptures that you can actually see in many
public places in Spain.
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21. My favourite painting
 This is my favourite
painting.
 Have you noticed how
natural it looks?
 You won’t see complicated
lines and structures or
strange colours.
 On the contrary, everything
is clear and full of light.
 The forms are few and
simple. His colours are
strong and bright: plain
blue, red, yellow, black and
white.
 His paintings transmits
happiness and imagination.
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