Curated by Matthew Gale and Marko Daniel

With his whimsical figures and candid use of color, Joan Miró has been cast as among the most playful of modern artists. This retrospective—Miró’s first in London in almost fifty years—suggests there was also a more troubled side to his work: one keyed continuously, if not always overtly, to the political turmoil of his time. Organized in collaboration with the Fundació Joan Miró and accompanied by a substantial catalogue, the show makes its case with more than 150 objects tracing the artist’s development from his formative years in Catalonia and in Parisian exile during the Spanish civil war to his return to Spain in 1940, his endurance of Franco’s regime, and his last decades, spent in Majorca.

— Molly Warnock