BARCELONA.- Sara Puig Alsina, President of the Fundació Joan Miró’s Board of Trustees, wishes to give her sincere thanks for the support and generosity shown by the artist’s family, and has announced the arrival, at the end of this year, of this new set of works to be shown in the spring/summer of 2022. At a special meeting, the Board celebrated and acknowledged the significance of the decision taken by the Miró family. At the same meeting, the Board welcomed a new Member, the artist Ignasi Aballí.

The new group of works comprises 54 pieces by Joan Miró –44 paintings, 9 drawings and 1 ceramic piece– and 5 works by Alexander Calder –1 painting and 4 mobiles– which will serve to reinforce the discourse of the Collection and reconstruct the artist’s legacy. The pieces that make up the Fundació Joan Miró Collection originally came from the gift the artist made when the museum first opened in 1975, and which has grown over the years through other donations and long-term loans added by his wife Pilar Juncosa, to whom the artist had given one piece from all the series he produced throughout his career; by Joan Prats; and by several members of the Miró family. Along with other long-term loans from public and private collections, together they make up a living, complete, and diverse collection.

The Fundació Joan Miró currently holds a collection of works by the artist consisting of 217 paintings, 178 sculptures, 2 objects, 4 ceramic pieces, 9 textile works and approximately 8,000 preliminary sketches for most of his works, along with an almost complete compilation of his prints and lithographs. Thanks to a long-term loan from the Miró family, the Fundació also has the content of the artist’s personal library among its holdings. The result is a collection like none other in the world, opening up multiple lines of research on, and broadened knowledge of, Joan Miró’s artistic path, and essential to the ongoing study of the artist’s output.

Part of the collection is shown in the spaces that Joan Miró and the architect Josep Lluís Sert designed for the venue at Montjuïc, in Barcelona –a prime reflection of friendship and dialogue between an architect and an artist– to which Jaume Freixa added an extension in 1988. These rooms also feature works by Alexander Calder, including Mercury Fountain, a donation to the Fundació in memory of the friendship between the two artists. The adopted approach reinforces the unique interaction between art, architecture and landscape that is the hallmark of the Fundació Joan Miró.

Ignasi Aballí, new member of the Fundació Joan Miró’s Board of Trustees

At the meeting held yesterday, 8 September 2021, the Board of Trustees also approved the admission of a new member, the artist Ignasi Aballí.

Ignasi Aballí Sanmartí (Barcelona, 1958) was trained as a visual artist at the Fine Arts Department of the University of Barcelona and taught painting at the Escola Massana (1990-2007), an experience that marked a turning point in his art production. Aballí’s long-standing career is currently acknowledged by leading contemporary art centres worldwide. His pieces have been shown at the Fundació Joan Miró; the MACBA; the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía; the Museu Serralves in Porto; Ikon Gallery in Birmingham; the Drawing Center in New York; ZKM in Karlsruhe; the 2007 Venice Biennale; and in art spaces and galleries in Barcelona, Madrid, Mexico, Belgium, Brazil and China. In 2015 his work received further recognition through the Joan Miró Prize and the exhibition Infinite Sequence, held the following year at the Fundació. Aballí is currently working on the project that will represent Spain at the 59th International Art Exhibition in Venice in 2022.

The Board of Trustees of the Fundació Joan Miró is made up of 20 members, including representatives from the Barcelona City Council, the Catalan Government and the Spanish Ministry of Culture, as well as from the art world and civil society. Sara Puig Alsina, a Board Member since 2013, was appointed President in March 2019, and Ana Vallès, President of Fundació Sorigué and the Sorigué group of companies, holds the position of Vice President.