The Museum of Modern Art presents Joan Miró: Birth of the World, an exhibition that explores the development of Miró’s pictorial universe, with particular emphasis on his intense engagement with poetry, the creative process, material experimentation, and the seen and unseen world. This focused exhibition, drawn from MoMA’s unrivalled Miró collection and augmented by several key loans, situates his monumental painting, The Birth of the World (1925), in relation to other key works by the artist, which are rarely shown together.

Joan Miró"Hirondelle Amour" 

Barcelona, late fall 1933-winter 1934

Medium

Oil on canvas

Dimensions

6' 6 1/2" x 8' 1 1/2" (199.3 x 247.6 cm)

Credit

Gift of Nelson A. Rockefeller

Object number

723.1976

Copyright

© 2019 Successió Miró / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris

On view from February 24 through July 6, 2019, the exhibition includes approximately 60 paintings, works on paper, prints, illustrated books, collages, and objects primarily made between 1920, the year of Miró’s first catalytic trip to Paris, and the early 1950s, when his unique visual language gained international acclaim. Joan Miró: Birth of the World is organized by Anne Umland, The Blanchette Hooker Rockefeller Senior Curator, Department of Painting and Sculpture.

The Museum of Modern Art’s collection of Miró’s works constitutes one of the finest and most comprehensive in the world. In 1941, MoMA organized the first major museum retrospective of Miró’s work, followed by others in 1959 and 1993, the centennial of the artist’s birth. The Museum has also presented focused exhibitions, most recently Joan Miró: Painting and Anti-Painting 1927–1937 (2008), which explored a single, transformative decade in Miró’s long career. The present exhibition extends the Museum’s commitment to Miró by offering for examination and reassessment an in-depth presentation of his works from the collection.