Miró grew up in Barcelona, Spain, and took drawing classes as a young boy. He continued to pursue art at the School of Industrial and Fine Arts in Barcelona and finished school in 1910. He officially decided to become a painter in 1912 and studied at the Cercle Artístic de Sant Lluc in Spain. 

Miró visited Paris in 1920 and became friends with artists and writers like Pablo Picasso, Ernest Hemingway, Max Ernst, Merit Oppenheim, René Magritte, Constantin Brâncusi, and Alberto Giacometti. He made connections there and eventually exhibited with many of the artists he met. He lived between Spain and Paris until the Spanish Civil War caused him to have to settle in Paris. Even though he was not formally a part of the group, Miró is considered a prominent surrealist artist. He popularized a type of spontaneous drawing called Automatism that the surrealists used to attempt to depict dreams and the subconscious mind. 

In the 1930s and 1940s, Miró created prints and paintings influenced by the violence of the Franco Dictatorship during the Spanish Civil War and WWII. These subjects influenced his artwork for the rest of his career as well. Miró eventually returned to Spain in 1948 after these wars ended. 

Miró’s work is categorized by a bold graphic style depicting organic figures and forms with bright primary and secondary colors. Throughout his work, he repeated motifs like eyes, birds, and the moon. He was influenced by other surrealist artists around him and Catalan Folk Art. Miró worked in painting, printmaking, sculpture, collage, and ceramics, creating tapestries from his designs. He was particularly interested in etching and lithography, as they allowed his artwork to reach a wider audience.