The Birth of the World

Joan Miró · Montroig, late summer-fall 1925

Before you is The Birth of the World — a painting by the Spanish artist Joan Miró, from Montroig, late summer-fall nineteen twenty-five. Miró was part of the surrealism movement. Oil on canvas — pigment ground into a slow-drying oil, which is what lets a painter go back into wet paint for days. It is one of the largest things in this museum — about 18 times the area of a typical work here.

Medium Oil on canvas · Dimensions 8' 2 3/4" x 6' 6 3/4" (250.8 x 200 cm) · Credit Acquired through an anonymous fund, the Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Slifka and Armand G. Erpf Funds, and by gift of the artist

Hanging beside it in Gallery 517: Battle of Fishes

More by Joan Miró here: Moonbird, Self-Portrait I