Joan Miró (Barcelono, 1893 – Palma, 1983)

In 2018, Oooit Art, authorized by the Miro Foundation (SUCCESSIÓ MIRÓ), in collaboration with Shanghai Duoxi Culture Communication Co., Ltd, jointly with Shanghai Public Transportation Card Co., Ltd produced and issued 25,000 sets of limited edition master Miró commemorative IC cards. The IC card can be used for public transportation in the whole urban area of Shanghai and has collection value. Each set of album contains four IC cards, and four important works of Miró in different periods are selected as patterns on the card surface. The content of the album includes the introduction of the master Miró’s life and the detailed introduction of these four works.

Joan Miró was born in Barcelona in 1893, but the emotional landscapes that shaped him as a person and an artist were principally those of Mont-roig, Paris, and Majorca, and later those of New York and Japan. The small town of Mont-roig in the Baix Camp region of Catalonia was a counterpoint to the intellectual ferment of his life with the surrealist poets in 1920s Paris, and to the stimulus of discovering Abstract Expressionism in New York in the forties. Some time later, in the midst of World War II, Joan Miró returned from exile in France and settled in Palma de Mallorca, which became his refuge and workplace and where his friend Josep Lluís Sert designed the studio of his dreams.

Miró’s attachment to the landscape of Mont-roig first and then Majorca was crucial in his work. His connection to the land and his interest in everyday objects and in the natural environment formed the backdrop to some of his technical and formal research. Miró avoided academicism in his constant quest for a pure, global art that could not be classified under any specific movement. Self-contained in his manners and public expressions, it is through art that Joan Miró showed his rebelliousness and a strong sensitivity to the political and social events around him. These conflicting forces led him to create a unique and extremely personal language that makes him one of the most influential artists of the 20th century.

Catalan Landscape ( The Hunter )
Catalan Landscape and the Tilled Field are earliest two major works of Miro that are classified as surrealist. They employ the symbolic language that would be prevalent in his later works. In The Hunter, his Catalan peasant alter ego is captured simultaneously in the act of shooting a rabbit for his cooking pot and fishing for a sardine for his barbecue. The painting is such intricately encoded that Miro later provided a precise explanation of the signs he had used. Catalan Landscape remains among the most celebrated surrealist masterpieces of Joan Miro.

The Harlequin’s Carnival
This painting depicts a merry making festival known as Mardi Gras, the celebration that begins the fasting of Lent and culminates on the day before Ash Wednesday. The titular character of the painting, Harlequin, is a person who puts on a disguise for fun, frequently plays the guitar and is usually the victim of unrequited love. Harlequin’s Carnival is seen by art critics as an account of the human subconscious mind. It is considered the highest point in Miro’s personal surrealist style.

The Smile of the Flamboyant Wings
The Smile of the Flamboyant Wings, 1953 is the first in a series of similarly impulsive paintings. Some even feature Miro’s handprints – a pleading gesture for which he derived his inspiration from pre-historic cave drawings. The use of materials and gestures became increasingly important factors in Miro’s works.

Figure in front of the Sun
Figure in front of the Sun illustrates the controlled gesture that distinguishes Miró’s painting in the late seventies, an expressive freedom with no clear precedent in his work but with an undeniable rigor of composition. Black is the point of departure, employed by the artist to outline and structure the painting. The incorporation of the other colours is governed by the divisions and the empty spaces. In spite of his spontaneity, Miró never neglects the composition: the elimination of any one element would destroy the overall balance.