Joan Miró was a seminal figure in 20th-century avant-garde painting. The Spanish artist’s innovative use of line, organic shapes, and color represented a major contribution to Surrealism. Representative of his ability to conjure evocative space, Miró’s famed triptych Blue I,II,II (1961) portrays a floating world using only blue, orange, and black. “Little by little, I've reached the stage of using only a small number of forms and colors,” the artist reflected. “It's not the first time that painting has been done with a very narrow range of colors. The frescoes of the tenth century are painted like this.” Born on April 20, 1893 in Barcelona, Spain, the artist first studied commerce before defying...