BARCELONA.- Il était une petite pie. 7 chansons et 3 chansons pour Hyacinthe by Lise Hirtz was the first book illustrated by Joan Miró. In this collection of poems, Hirtz – a writer linked to the Surrealist circle – brings together a series of simple-rhyme compositions conceived as children’s songs. Miró illustrated them with eight pochoirs, a printing technique that consists in creating, from a given drawing, several stencils that allow colours to be successively applied and thus obtain short runs with results similar to those achieved through manual processes. The book was published by Éditions Jeanne Bucher in Paris in 1928, and the typography and printing of text and pochoirs were undertaken by Saudé. A year later, the composer Georges Auric, to whom the collection was dedicated, set five poems to music.

Miró received the commission to illustrate this book via André Breton and Paul Eluard, who sent him the collection of poems copied by hand by Breton himself. From the mid- 1920s, Miró longed to go beyond the boundaries of painting to reach poetry, so this collaborative experience allowed him to continue experimenting with the combination of images and words.

In the 1930s and 1940s, when Miró began writing long poems and a musical sense became increasingly important in his work, this book came to him again as a source of inspiration. ‘Let my work be like a poem set to music by a painter,’ Miró said at this time.

The show Il était une petite pie at the Archive of the Fundació Joan Miró resonates with the exhibition Imaginary Friends, a project being presented by the museum this spring in its temporary exhibition rooms, which intends to introduce audiences of all ages, and especially children, to the imaginative and creative possibilities of contemporary art.

The Fundació Joan Miró’s aim is to promote the furtherance of research into, and the dissemination of, the unique collection that it preserves, which is the core of all its activities. To make this central aspect visible, the Fundació Joan Miró archives of drawings, documentation and graphic and lithographic work have been located in the octagonal tower of the building, in a space integrated into collection visits. The current location of the Archive has an exhibition space that, through displays of materials from the Fundació’s documentary collection, allows visitors to get a deeper knowledge of the artist’s creative processes and projects.

The Archive of the Fundació Joan Miró preserves an extensive collection of works on paper and documents related to Joan Miró. The most important part of this collection is a set of around 10,000 pieces, including preparatory drawings, models and annotations that the artist made throughout his life. It also houses a nearly complete collection of graphic work and artist’s books, as well as documentary holdings that include correspondence, invitations, photographs and other materials. The collection’s conservation and presentation have the generous and ongoing support of the Fundació Vila Casas.