Picasso, Miro, Dali

The birth of the modern as seen through sixty stunning early works by three of the greatest artists of all time. This splendid catalog brings together the early works of Picasso, Miro, and Dali, the extraordinary Spanish artists who had a key role in early modern art.
The publication begins by examining Picasso’s pre-cubist period (1900-1905), while closely contrasting works created by Joan Miro between 1915-1920 with those by Salvador Dali between 1920-1925 in order to highlight the differences and stylistic relationships prior to the three artists’ adherence to surrealism.
The authors have chosen early works rarely exhibited or published that show the artists’ early influences. Picasso’s early work is profoundly influenced by the artist’s political convictions. As for Miro, he rejected figurative painting as an expression of the cultural identity of the governing classes and also saw cubism as a “political tool.” Dali was ousted from the Academy in 1926 for having declared that no one in the faculty was sufficiently competent to examine him, yet his early work is marked by a complete mastery of pictorial techniques.

The curator Cristoph Vitali was director of the Schirn Kunsthalle in Frankfurt, the Haus der Kunst in Munich, the Beyeler Foundation in Basel, and the German Federal Republic Art and Exhibition Hall in Bonn. Eugenio Carmona, who is a well-known art historian, is a specialist in Spanish modern art.