Fundació Joan Miró

Joan Miró, born in Barcelona in 1893, founded this museum himself in 1975, donating a substantial body of his own work and commissioning his close friend, architect Josep Lluís Sert, to design the building specifically to house it — meaning both the art and its setting reflect a single artist's direct intentions rather than a museum assembled posthumously by curators. Sert's design, all white walls, skylights and Mediterranean courtyards, was conceived to flood the galleries with the same natural light that defines Miró's palette of primary colours, black outlines and biomorphic shapes.

The collection spans Miró's entire career, from early, relatively representational Catalan landscapes through his mature Surrealist-influenced style of playful, dreamlike forms, into his late-career sculpture and textile work — the Fundació's holdings are deep enough to trace his full artistic evolution in a way smaller collections elsewhere can't match. A dedicated space houses the "Sala Joan Prats," featuring the sculpture garden and the artist's own studies and preparatory sketches, giving insight into his working process rather than only finished pieces.