Joan Miró (1893-1983)
Miró was born in Barcelona, Spain, in 1893. After an unhappy period as a clerk, he studied in Paris and Barcelona, and exhibited his work with other surrealists in 1925. In his early years, he had great admiration for primitive Catalán art and the Art Nouveau forms of Gaudi’s architecture. In 1920, he settled in Paris and invented a manner of painting using curvilinear, fantastical forms that suggest dreamlike situations. His paintings are predominantly abstract, and his humorous fantasy makes play with a restricted range of pure colors and dancing shapes. Miró’s work has been described as lively, colorful, and fantastical. His other works include ballet sets, sculptures, murals, and tapestries.
Salvador Dalí (1904-1989)
Dalí is one of the most recognizable and enigmatic painters of the 20th century. After studying at the Academy of Fine Arts, Madrid, he moved to Paris and joined the surrealists (1928), becoming one of the principal figures of the movement. Dalí’s paintings derived from the world of dreams and symbols. His study of abnormal psychology led him to represent objects in landscapes that he remembered from his Spanish boyhood. In 1940, he settled in the United States, became a Catholic, and devoted his art to symbolic religious paintings. He wrote The Secret Life of Salvador Dalí (1942), and collaborated with Luis Buñuel in the surrealist films Un Chien Andalou (1928), and L’Age d’Or (1930). One of his best-known paintings is The Persistence of Memory known as The Limp Watches, 1911.
