Joan Miró Foundation gets 10-year loan of 37 works from Japanese collector

The Joan Miró Foundation is adding to its holdings with a 10-year loan of 37 works from the Katsuta Collection. 

The works add to the range of techniques and creative processes on display, and six of the pieces have never been exhibited before. The selection combines pieces already tied to the shared history of both collections with new additions that help complete and expand the story of Joan Miró's career.

The loan completes several of Miró's series and opens new avenues for study and future research on the artist. It also revives a long-standing relationship between the foundation and Kazumasa Katsuta, a collector of Miró's work and a trustee of the institution since 1999.

Maribel López, director of the Joan Miró Foundation, called it a "generous deposit," that will allow visitors to discover "new works that have never been here before, and the chance to reconnect with others that we have missed." 

López said the institution aspires to be the "go-to destination" for collectors who believe their works belong in "the best possible place." 

"Understanding what [these pieces] represented for art," she said, "is central to our vision and commitments, a mission that is further strengthened by the addition of these works."

Around 30 pieces on display

From October 29, the public can see 29 of the 37 works in the foundation's galleries. The remaining pieces will be added gradually, in line with the foundation's approach of rotating its permanent collection. 

The works are currently shown through two thematic threads within the general exhibition layout: "Open and Closed" and "Rhythm." 

"Pintura poema" (1925) stands out among the additions. Through its use of calligraphy, it highlights the Catalan artist’s desire to blur the boundaries between painting and poetry, and it belongs to a pivotal period in the evolution of his artistic language.

The loan also includes "Pintura" (1927), "El cel entreobert ens torna l'esperança" (1954), "Paisatge en la nit" (1966-1974) and "Cançó sobre fons blanc" (1966). 

Together, the works allow visitors to explore the stages of Miró's career and offer deeper insight into his resistance to established pictorial conventions. 

The loan also includes six sculptures, created with various foundries Miró worked with, and two ceramic pieces from 1962. These bolster a practice that was essential to the surrealist artist's experimentation with materials and that was previously represented only to a limited extent in the foundation's collection.

Teresa Montaner, head of collections at the foundation, said that beyond the "top-tier" works, the loan opens the door to further research by showing a more "experimental" Miró, an artist who engages with materials, questions the nature of painting and strives to take his work in new directions. 

Long-standing relationship

Beyond adding the pieces to the foundation's exhibition circuit, the agreement reaffirms a decades-long bond between the foundation and Katsuta, a Japanese collector and honorary patron of the institution.

Their first collaboration dates to 1993, when, for the centenary of Miró's birth, Katsuta lent works from his collection to the foundation's major commemorative exhibition. 

In 1997, some 40 paintings from the Katsuta Collection were shown in the exhibition "Joan Miró: Equilibrium in Space." Katsuta became a trustee of the institution in 1999, and two years later a significant part of his collection began to be shown permanently at the foundation through a long-term loan.

The relationship also has an international dimension. In 2025, the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum hosted ‘Joan Miró: Poetry into Painting,’ the artist's first major retrospective in Japan since the 1966 exhibitions in Tokyo and Kyoto, which prompted Miró's first visit to the country. 

The show was co-curated by the foundation and the Tokyo museum and brought together nearly 100 works, with the Katsuta Collection and the foundation as the main lenders.

Akiko and Toshiya Katsuta, children of Kazumasa Katsuta, attended the presentation of the works Thursday. Akiko spoke on behalf of her father.

"My father is a Japanese man who, despite being far removed from Catalan culture, has always embraced Miró's work," she said.

"Today, at the age of 87, this passion shines brighter than ever," she said. "Although he cannot return to Barcelona to view the works, and finds it difficult that they are so far away, he believes that having them at the Fundació Miró is what Joan Miró would have wanted."