Joan Miro was an avid reader of modern and contemporary French and Catalan poetry. When he joined the Surrealist group in Paris in 1925 he became friends with many of these poets and collaborated with them on the creation of books.
Il etait une petite pie (There was a little magpie) was published in Paris in 1928. It is Miro's first illustrated book, containing eight 'pochoir' prints to accompany the poems of Anne-Marie (Lise) Hirtz. Andre Breton, who was hopelessly in love with Hirtz at this time, asked Miro to provide images for the whimsical, child-like songs, published in this book in her ornate handwriting. In style, Miro's drawings are close to his paintings of this time, some of which incorporated his own poetic texts.
The display will also feature Miro's book collaborations with poets such as Andre Breton, Paul Eluard and Tristan Tzara together with books for which he himself wrote the text as well as creating the images.
