An exhibit of 65 works by the legendary Spanish painter, sculptor and ceramicist Joan Miró is on display at the New National Museum of Monaco, Villa Paloma, now through to the end of October.

In a posthumous return to Monaco, an exhibit by Joan Miró entitled La Peinture au Défi has come to the Principality featuring a large selection of works from the Spanish surrealist.

Hosted by the New National Museum of Monaco (NMNM), Villa Paloma, and curated by the Galerie Gmurzynska, the collection includes many interesting works including an original painting completed when Miró worked in Monaco with Diaghilev’s 1932 Ballets Rusees on Jeux d’Enfants,

“One of the merits of this exhibition is to remind us that the painter created the stage curtain, sets, costumes and props for the ballet Jeux d’enfants,” said Prince Albert II, whose foundation is a partner in the event “Knowing this enables us to fully appreciate the good fortune of the Monegasque public when the music of George Bizet, a libretto by Boris Kochno, choreography by Léonide Massine, the unparalleled talent of the Ballets Russes and the inimitable visual language of Joan Miró were brought together in the Principality in 1932. The stage photographs and correspondence between Kochno and the painter from the collection of the NMNM give evidence of this tremendous encounter.”
“This exhibition was born out of the time of Covid-19 in order to create some happiness in unruly times” curator Isabelle Bscher, co-owner of Galerie Gmurzynska, added “In his paintings, he offered escape from the horrors of the First World War, the Second World War and the Spanish Civil War. This exhibition spans from great dreamscapes of the 1920s to the work of the 1970s, which sometimes veer towards the destruction of painting. All through his life, Miró was a great revolutionary, all the while being a humanitarian opposing extremism and the repression of ideas.”
The show will run from now to 25^th October and visitors can receive a fully illustrated catalogue with commentary and essays by the artist’s grandson, Joan Punyet Miró as well as Joachim Pissarro, Robert Lubar Messeri Jérôme Neutres, Clara Montero, Bernardo Laniado-Romero.
 
Photo: Joan Punyet Mirό © Direction de la Communication / Manuel Vitali