Born in Barcelona in 1893 Joan Miró’s imagination was quickly stimulated by the advances of the local and Parisian avant-garde. Among the artists that influenced him, Henri Matisse and the movement of Fauvism stand out having informed Miro’s aesthetics and his relationship with colour. After experimenting with cubism, in 1924, the artist found his proper voice in Surrealism. Yet, unlike other Surrealists, like the also Catalan Salvador Dalí, who used the figurative tradition to depict his strange dreamworld, Miró created his personal and entirely idiosyncratic vocabulary of fantastic symbols and forms reminiscent of children's drawings. His description of a universe that goes "deeper into the magical side of things" encapsulates his iconic style. Humoristic, highly decorative and recognizable, his art gained international recognition and from the 1950s the artist started receiving commissions from all over the world. As a thank you note to his birthplace Barcelona, Miró founded this Centre of Studies of Contemporary Art in 1968.