BARCELONA.- The Fundació Joan Miró, in collaboration with The Phillips Collection in Washington, presents a new and revealing exhibition entitled Miró and the United States, which highlights the intense, bidirectional and intergenerational relationship between Joan Miró and his contemporaries in North America. While it is well known that many North American artists were inspired by Miró, it is less well known that he was also inspired by North American art, particularly gestural, action and large format painting. This exchange and creative flow spanned continents and generations and is one of the central themes of the exhibition, which is part of the commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of the Fundació Joan Miró. Coming from a Spain devastated by the Franco dictatorship, the United States represented for Miró not only art, but also a country of large open horizons, hope, democracy, future and endless possibilities.

The exhibition brings together an outstanding selection of paintings, drawings, sculptures, prints, films and archival documents from American and European collections, as well as new studies by renowned specialists on Miró’s artistic evolution.

A decisive artistic dialogue

Miró and the United States is a unique exhibition because it offers a fresh look at Miró’s place in modern art, a reading that places the North American context at its heart. In other words, rather than focusing on the French context, which is essential for understanding his work from the 1920s and 1930s onwards, the show situates the United States as a pivotal territory in the evolution of Joan Miró’s artistic language, his international recognition and his connections with other artists. The United States enabled Joan Miró to undertake large-scale public projects – such as the sculpture Moon, Sun and One Star, made for Chicago – that would have been unfeasible in Spain at the time. The open and experimental environment of the United States helped Miró to consolidate his creative freedom and international recognition.

The exhibition therefore showcases key moments in Miró’s career in the USA: his two retrospectives in New York (in 1941 and 1959), his seven visits between 1947 and 1968, and also the pivotal role played by his dealer, Pierre Matisse, as well as the support of various American institutions and collectors.

The exhibition is a unique event as it displays 138 works from American and European collections as well as those from the Fundació Joan Miró’s own holdings, including both works by Miró and approximately forty other artists. The selection is based on known connections and intergenerational relationships of admiration, including the likes of Louise Bourgeois, Alexander Calder, Helen Frankenthaler, Arshile Gorky, Lee Krasner, Alice Trumbull Mason, Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko, among many others. This artistic conversation demonstrates how Miró’s legacy continues to live on.

Based on years of research, the exhibition re-examines the established narratives about Miró’s position in the history of art through the selection of artists who feature in it. The different sections of Miró and the United States explore this relationship between Miró and forty-nine contemporary artists from different generations. The exhibition also includes many artists who, despite not being originally from the country, moved or went there temporarily to develop part of their artistic careers. Driven by immigration, exile, the search for opportunities or cultural exchange, these creators played a decisive role in shaping the diverse and international North American art scene.

Although it has become commonplace, the fact that the centre of the art world shifted from Paris to New York is historically grounded. The global upheaval of the Second World War led to many European artists and intellectuals being exiled to the United States, fostering the emergence of North American Abstract Expressionism. This geopolitical and cultural shift was examined in a pioneering manner by Serge Guilbaut in How New York Stole the Idea of Modern Art (1985), in which he argues how New York appropriated the symbolic leadership of modern art.

Miró witnessed and participated in the shift of artistic capital from Paris to New York in the period immediately following the turbulent years of the Second World War. This geopolitical and cultural reconfiguration, which may have once seemed distant, now resonates with an urgency and topicality that would have seemed unimaginable just a few years ago.

One of the major attractions of Miró and the United States is the curatorial proposal, which brings together works and artists that reveal connections between Miró and the North American art scene that have never been seen before. The exhibition also offers the public an exceptional opportunity to view works that have never previously been exhibited in Spain, including Lee Krasner’s The Seasons, which is on loan from the Whitney Museum for the first time.

Another exhibition highlight is the presence of Miró's Mural Painting, 20 March 1961 (1961), a monumental work that was exhibited several times in the 1960s: in 1961 at the Galerie Maeght in Paris and the Pierre Matisse Gallery in New York, and in 1964 in London and Zurich as part of the Miró retrospective organised by Roland Penrose. Since then, once Josep Lluís Sert had donated the mural to the Harvard Art Museums, this is the first time they have authorised its loan for an exhibition in Europe, a fact that makes its presence in the Miró and the United States exhibition a truly exceptional event.

Moreover, in an unprecedented move, the first two works that Miró exhibited in the United States have been reunited for the first time: Le Renversement (1924) and Painting (1926), which were originally presented at the Brooklyn Museum.

Never-before-seen works, exchanges and connections

As part of Miró and the United States, the Fundació Joan Miró is presenting 22 pochoirs on paper of Constellations, dated 1959. Like the original Constellations of 1940-1941,, they were conceived by Miró so that they could be viewed from both sides. While these pieces have been previously exhibited in other settings, this is the first time they have been displayed according to this original, double-sided design, exactly as the artist had intended. This unprecedented curatorial commitment recovers his original vision, offering the public a fresh look at the formal freedom and experimental spirit that define his work.

Alongside important works admired by Miró, such as Jackson Pollock's Number 14, are more surprising dialogues, such as that with Janet Sobel, whose Illusion of Solidity (1945) shows her to be the precursor of the dripping technique One of the exhibition’s crowning works is Lee Krasner’s The Seasons, a piece of imposing dimensions and sublime visual and emotional impact that is travelling to Spain for the first time. The exhibition also sheds light on female artists who had to use male pseudonyms to gain recognition, such as Henrietta Myers (Peter Miller) and Corinne Michelle West (Michael West).

Expanded horizons

The Miró and the United States exhibition arrives at a particularly opportune moment, filling a clear need in Miró’s artistic story. It transports us to another time and place – full of light, curiosity and risk – when art was a bold commitment to a better future. Amidst a 20th century marked by repression and instability, contact with the United States represented a source of creative energy and openness for Joan Miró, a democratic and dynamic horizon full of artistic opportunities.

Miró actively engaged in dialogue with the North American artistic community, which became a place of inspiration and transformation. This fruitful exchange not only renewed his career, but also reinforced his ability to connect with a world in motion, full of contrasts and possibilities. The exhibition therefore invites us to look back and move forward with hope, to continue taking risks and to believe in the power of art as a tool for change and expanding horizons.

The Miró and the United States exhibition, co-organised with The Phillips Collection in Washington, will also be on show there from 21 March to 5 July 2026.

Curatorship: Marko Daniel, Matthew Gale and Dolors Rodríguez Roig from the Fundació Joan Miró, in collaboration with Elsa Smithgall from The Phillips Collection