BARCELONA, SPAIN.-Joan Miró’s estate has made a long-term loan to the Foundation of the artist’s private library, consisting of a total of 1,783 publications. Miró was an artist who always emphasised the fundamental importance of the relationship between reading and creative work, and these books will provide a better understanding of the exact nature of this relationship and hence a better understanding of Miró’s art.

This personal library, which Miró had built up during his lifetime and had managed to preserve despite the wars and despite moving house between Barcelona, Paris, Mont-roig and Palma, was split up at his request.

In 1975, when the Joan Miró Foundation opened in Barcelona, Miró donated to its library part of his own private library, to form its initial stock. These items included a selection of monographs, exhibition catalogues and art reviews.

On his death, the books that remained in the studio designed for him in Majorca by Josep Lluís Sert – 340 volumes – were transferred to the library at the Fundació Pilar i Joan Miró in Palma.

Miró’s collection is formed principally of universal works of literature in Catalan, French and Spanish, as well as books on the world of Surrealism, many of them with a dedication by their author, and on art criticism and theory, mainly from the 1920s and 1930s. They show his links with intellectual circles in Catalonia in the first half of the twentieth century and also with the Surrealist movement in Paris, in addition to his personal interests.

Joan Miró’s private library will be housed in the Foundation’s archives and will only be open to specialists in his art. However, the general public will have access to a list of the books through a computerised catalogue. The Foundation is working on making this catalogue available for consultation in the future on the internet.

In order to continue adding to the Foundation’s archives, we are also working on a compilation of articles about Miró published in newspapers and magazines and on his correspondence with his contemporaries.

With this private library, which will join the sketches, drawings, studies and notes (around 10,000 works in total) and the collection of limited-edition books donated at the outset by Miró, the Joan Miró Foundation has further consolidated its position as probably the largest international reference centre for experts and specialists in Joan Miró and his art.