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Joan Miro - Intimistes

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Following his break from the Surrealists, Miró explored different friendships in the 1930s, in particular with his fellow Spaniard Pablo Picasso. Friends since the 1920s, their relationship was to be particularly fruitful during this period due to their shared response to the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in 1936. Unrepentant supporters of the Republic, the two friends exhibited side by side at the Pavilion of the Spanish Republic at the International Exhibition of Paris in 1937. The pair retained this close friendship and deep mutual admiration until Picasso's death in 1973. For the majority of the war Miró lived between Mallorca and Barcelona. These years were spent in relative exile, isolated from the artistic community of Paris and friends such as Léger and Calder who left France for the United States. Despite this isolation, the war years produced a new body of work, the celebrated Constellations series, heralded by the artist as 'one of the most important things I have done'. The end of the Second World War signalled a renewal of old friendships. In 1947 Miró travelled for the first time to New York, regaining contact with Calder. The strength of this friendship was affirmed in 1961 when the two exhibited together at the Perls Gallery, each writing a poem for the other for the show's catalogue. New York also led to the start of new friendships, notably with the younger generation of Abstract Expressionist painters, such as Jackson Pollock and Robert Motherwell, to whom Miró had been a central influence. The impact of their friendship is clear in the energy and spirit of Miró's works from the 1960s and 70s. Friendships old and new were a constant support and source of inspiration for Miró's life and work. These relationships started, and in some cases ended, major phases of his career and were in turn often reflected back in the work of his 'intimistes'.

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