His was one of the most expensive artworks in WTC to be lost in 9/11: Joan Miró was born today

April 20, On This Day

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Surrealist, Fauvist, Expressionist — this Spanish painter, sculptor and ceramicist wore many-a-hat, but his work was ever redefining tropes at every turn and politically charged through most of his life.

Joan Miró was born on April 20, 1893, in Barcelona.

It is written that he “was notable for his interest in the unconscious or the subconscious mind, reflected in his re-creation of the childlike and his difficult-to-classify works also had a manifestation of Catalan pride”.

Award winning American writer Ernest Hemingway is said to have described an artwork by Miró as: “It has in it all that you feel about Spain when you are there and all that you feel when you are away and cannot go there. No one else has been able to paint these two very opposing things.”

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Miró has been a significant influence on late 20th-century art, in particular the US abstract expressionist artists that include Robert Motherwell, Alexander Calder, Arshile Gorky, Jackson Pollock, Roberto Matta and Mark Rothko.

In 1974, Miró created a tapestry for the World Trade Center in New York City together with the Catalan artist Josep Royo. He had initially refused to do a tapestry, then he learned the craft from Royo and the two artists produced several works together. His WTC tapestry was displayed at the building and was one of the most expensive works of art lost during the September 11 attacks.

The artist, who suffered from heart failure, died in his home in Palma (Majorca) on December 25, 1983.