Mir Majorque

When Joan Mir moved to Majorca in 1956 he already enjoyed an international reputation and still had twenty-five years to live, dying on the Balearic island in 1981. Confident in his capabilities and status and spurred on by a kind of creative freedom, he spent these years in his studio experimenting to the greatest degree. He developed, or rather perfected, his own inimitable style: elementary forms became a personal iconography as he placed increasing faith in the expressive power of the brushstroke and the impact of the paint itself. His work displays the most varied influences and all are strongly present: the cave paintings at Altamira, Romanesque art, Catalan landscapes, and the inventiveness of Gaud. But he also found inspiration in the East, in the rhythms of poetry, and in action painting. They all nurtured his theme of transformations, of metamorphoses. The book, which includes over 150 illustrations of paintings, sculptures, and works on paper, many of which extremely large and previously unpublished, will be released to coincide with the Joan Mir exhibition to be held in Quebec (Muse national des beaux-arts du Qubec, 30 May - 8 September 2019), an event that sees the artist's work return to Canada after a hiatus of thirty years. Text in French.