{"id":318710,"date":"2025-08-05T02:46:24","date_gmt":"2025-08-05T02:46:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/318710\/"},"modified":"2025-08-05T02:46:24","modified_gmt":"2025-08-05T02:46:24","slug":"majorca-repays-debt-to-joan-miro-with-largest-exhibition-in-his-honour","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/318710\/","title":{"rendered":"Majorca \u2018repays debt\u2019 to Joan Mir\u00f3 with largest exhibition in his honour"},"content":{"rendered":"

An opportunity to see fine art is not necessarily the first thing that springs to mind when considering the popular Spanish holiday spot of Majorca.<\/p>\n

But the island intends to change that by staging the largest-ever homage to the Barcelona-born artist Joan Mir\u00f3, whose childhood drawings depict the beauty of the place where he spent his own holidays.<\/p>\n

In 1911, at the age of 18, for example, he drew Palma\u2019s La Lonja, the city\u2019s gothic exchange built in the 15th century. \u201cHe later settled in [the Balearic island\u2019s capital], where he died nearly three decades later in 1983, and donated his studios to the city,\u201d said Joan Punyet Mir\u00f3, his grandson. \u201cYet the island never honoured him with a fitting exhibition.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Palma<\/p>\n

Palma\u2019s La Lonja, the city\u2019s gothic exchange built in the 15th century<\/p>\n

SERGI REBOREDO\/VWPICS\/UNIVERSAL IMAGES GROUP\/GETTY IMAGES<\/p>\n

Until now. Majorca has \u201crepaid its debt\u201d, Punyet said, as several of the island\u2019s institutions come together to jointly launch the monumental Paysage Mir\u00f3, or Mir\u00f3 Landscape. <\/p>\n

The mass exhibition is on show in four of the city\u2019s museums: Es Baluard, the Fundaci\u00f3 Mir\u00f3 Majorca, Casal Solleric and La Lonja. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a very important exhibition, a review of Mir\u00f3 like never before, larger in scale and more ambitious than any in the Balearic Islands and possibly in Spain,\u201d said Ant\u00f2nia Maria Perell\u00f3, the Fundaci\u00f3 Mir\u00f3 Majorca director.<\/p>\n

The Reina Sof\u00eda museum in Madrid has loaned 53 works out of the 117 on display, among which is the masterpiece Femme, Oiseau, \u00c9toile \u2014 a tribute to his friend Pablo Picasso. <\/p>\n

\"Illustration<\/p>\n

Chevaux en fuite par le vol de l\u2019oiseau-terreur (Horses flee from the flight of the terror bird), 1976, oil on Pompier-style chipboard; and Femme en transe par la fuite des etoiles filantes (Woman entranced by the escape of shooting stars), 1969, acrylic on canvas, below<\/p>\n

\"Illustration<\/p>\n

At the Fundaci\u00f3 Mir\u00f3 Majorca the show examines the \u201cmagical sparks\u201d, which Mir\u00f3 said inspired his works. \u201cWe present many objects, documents, photographs and newspaper clippings that Mir\u00f3 collected throughout his life and that were always around him,\u201d said Perell\u00f3. \u201cHe would have them in his studios; until he covered his walls with this \u2018second skin\u2019, he couldn\u2019t work comfortably, whether they were a stone, a shell, a piece of wood, or even poetry or a piece of music.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Abstract<\/p>\n

Lettres et chiffres attir\u00e9s par une \u00e9tincelle (Letters and numbers attracted by a spark), 1968, acrylic on canvas<\/p>\n

\u2022 Mir\u00f3 and Matisse, an unlikely friendship of contrasting masters<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

The foundation also exhibits works that were given to Mir\u00f3 by other artists, such as the Russian painter Wassily Kandinsky, the French artist Georges Braque, and Picasso, as well as more than 250 objects and documents. <\/p>\n

\"Joan<\/p>\n

Mir\u00f3 donated his studios in Palma to the city after his death<\/p>\n

DESMOND MORRIS COLLECTION\/UNIVERSAL IMAGES GROUP\/GETTY IMAGES<\/p>\n

The works at La Lonja are solely focused on sculptures, such as Oiseau lunaire, or Moonbird, of a hybrid creature with a shining, polished surface.<\/p>\n

Mir\u00f3\u2019s most groundbreaking works, in which \u201che took huge risks, using harsher, stronger gestures, even ripping the canvases\u201d and produced later in his life, are on show at Es Baluard. The pieces are from the 1970s, when the artist was at the peak of his experimental phase. He once said: \u201cTo break from tradition, you must first understand tradition and then destroy it.\u201d <\/p>\n

Paysage Mir\u00f3: The magic spark is on until January 11, 2026<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An opportunity to see fine art is not necessarily the first thing that springs to mind when considering…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":318711,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3939],"tags":[4021,4020,4022,77,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-318710","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-design","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114973873754591795","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318710","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=318710"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318710\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/318711"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=318710"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=318710"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=318710"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}