Thames & Hudson World of Art – Miró

Miró, published by Thames & Hudson, is an overview of the life, work and thinking of painter Joan Miró, who was one of the 20th century masters of surrealism. The book is written by historian Roland Penrose, who was a close friend of the artist for nearly five decades. This revised edition, illustrated in full color, is part of Thames & Hudson’s World of Art series. Each volume in the series focuses on a particular art form, artist, or genre.

Among the great 20th-century masters, the surrealist painter Joan Miró stands out for the atmosphere of wit and spontaneity that pervades his work. Miró’s art went through many phases, and its major features – his signs and symbols, his series of anguished peintures sauvages in the 1930s, his lyrical, poetic gouaches, his monumental sculptures and ceramics, his unprecedented use of poetic titles, and his attachment to nature and to the night – are discussed here by Roland Penrose, a friend of the artist for almost five decades. A brief epilog by Eduardo de Benito, London correspondent of the Spanish art periodical Lápiz, illustrates the developments of Miró’s last years. This new revised edition, now illustrated in color throughout, includes a foreword by Antony Penrose, outlining the relationship between his father and the artist, as well as updates to the Bibliography.