Joan Miró i Ferrà (mirr-OH, US also mee-ROH; 20 April 1893 – 25 December 1983) was a Catalan painter, sculptor, and ceramicist from Spain.
His work has been interpreted as Surrealist with a personal style, sometimes also veering into Fauvism and Expressionism. He was notable for his interest in the unconscious or the subconscious mind, reflected in his re-creation of the childlike. His sometimes difficult-to-classify works are also said to contain manifestations of Catalan pride.
In numerous interviews dating from the 1930s onwards, Miró expressed contempt for conventional painting methods which he saw as supporting bourgeois society, and which he declared an "assassination of painting" in favor of upsetting the visual elements of established painting.
In 1975 a museum dedicated to his work, the Fundació Joan Miró, was established in his native city of Barcelona with another one being opened in 1981 in his adoptive city of Palma, Mallorca.
