Jean Marie del Moral : MIRÓ, Montroig – PICASSO, Horta

“All my work was conceived in Mont-roig”, said Joan Miró.

“Everything I know I learned in Horta”, said Picasso.

Picasso and Miró revolutionised modern art in the early 20th century. Trained in Barcelona, it was in Paris where both established themselves as artists. But their painting and art have their roots in two unique places in southern Catalonia: Horta de Sant Joan and Mont-Roig del Camp.

French photographer Jean Marie Del Moral has always been fascinated by the work and figures of Picasso and Miró. A connoisseur of the places where both geniuses found inspiration and worked, he asserts that in Horta and Mont-Roig, Picasso and Miró encountered nature and popular culture in their most primitive state. Del Moral believes that both artists shared the same ideas about creation, art, life and nature. He therefore considers that the roots of their art are common and that the similarities between the landscapes of Horta and Mont-Roig are entirely revealing.

Through his lyrical and intimate photography, Del Moral creates an imaginary dialogue between the landscapes and places that inspired Picasso and Miró. With his lucid and poetic gaze, Del Moral reveals a new Picasso and a new Miró, always original, always unique, but essentially similar.

This exhibition will be the contribution of  Fundació Pilar i Joan Miró a Mallorca to the new PHOTOFEST competition, an initiative of the Art Palma Contemporani gallery association, which will have its first edition in April and May 2026.

https://www.jeanmariedelmoral.com/

Biography of Jean Marie del Moral

The son of Spanish parents exiled from the Civil War, he has been working as a photographer since the age of 14. He started as an assistant in the photography department of an aeronautical company. In 1973 he joined the staff of the French communist newspaper L’Humanité as a photographer, producing social interest reports, and in 1974 he moved to Canada and the United States, where he discovered great photographers, such as Paul Strand, Walker Evans, Irving Penn and Manuel Álvarez Bravo. He worked as a photographer on the documentary of the Montreal Olympic Games in 1976. Upon returning to Europe in 1977 he collaborated with several magazines and photographed Joan Miró for a report on Spanish intellectuals after the death of Franco.

The meeting with Miró would determine the direction of his future work in photography. Since then he has photographed the workshops and creative processes of painters and sculptors from all over the world, such as Miquel Barceló, Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Motherwell, Antoni Tàpies, Antonio Saura, Julian Schnabel and Zao Wou-Ki, among others. He directed the documentaries Les ateliers de Barceló (1991) and Picasso y la tauromaquia (1993).

A contributor to Vogue, Madame Figaro, El País Semanal, Matador and Travel and Leisure, among other publications, his work has been exhibited at Les Rencontres d’Arles (1988) and in museums such as the Museu Da Cidade in Lisbon (2004), the el Centro Conde Duque in Madrid (2004), the Instituto Valenciano de Arte Moderno in Cuenca, the Fundación Antonio Pérez in Cuenca (2004) PHotoEspaña 2007, and the Museo de Obra Gráfica San Clemente in Cuenca (2008), among others. His works are in the collections of the Fundación Pérez (Cuenca), the Fundación Apeles Fenosa (El Vendrell), the IVAM, the Fundació Pilar i Joan Miró a Mallorca and the Fundación Pollock-Krasner (New York).