Fundació Joan Miró takes 37 Miró works from Katsuta collection on 10-year loan

Deposit and display

The Fundació Joan Miró in Barcelona presented on Thursday, 29 October, a ten-year deposit of 37 works by Joan Miró from the collection of Japanese collector Kazumasa Katsuta. From that Thursday, visitors can see 29 of the 37 works in the foundation's galleries on Montjuïc, and the rest will be added gradually as part of the centre's regular rotation of its displays. Six of the pieces had never been exhibited at the foundation, and the agreement revives a partnership that dates back to 1993. Teresa Montaner, the foundation's head of collections, presented the deposit as a way to complete and widen the story of the artist's career.

Works in deposit37

On display from 29 October29

Never shown at the foundation6

Works in deposit

37

On display from 29 October

29

Never shown at the foundation

6

Data from the article text

History of the collection

The Katsuta holdings are built mainly on works that passed through Pierre Matisse, who worked as a dealer in the United States from 1932. The collection has grown over the years with pieces from Raymond Queneau and René Gaffé, among others. Its centrepiece is Pintura-poema (Bonheur d'aimer ma brune), an oil from 1925 that dates to the period when André Breton, Paul Éluard and Louis Aragon visited Miró's studio in Paris. The works in the deposit span 1914 to 1977 and include paintings, some of them large-format, along with drawings and sculpture. Canción sobre fondo blanco (1966) is another standout, which the foundation says shows the experimenting Miró of the 1950s and 1960s.

Words from the presentation

Sara Puig, the foundation's president, thanked the Katsuta family for its long generosity toward the Catalan institution and said the presence of the collector's children showed the continuity of the alliance. Kazumasa Katsuta, who is 87, did not attend, so his children Heikishi and Akiko spoke on his behalf. Akiko Katsuta said her father, a patron of the foundation since 1999, still feels a 'ferviente pasión' for the painter. She acknowledged that parting with the works hurt, though she said she felt really fortunate that they remain in Barcelona.

“My father is Japanese and, even now, at 87, that passion shines as brightly as ever.”

The partnership began in 1993, when Katsuta lent works for the Miró centenary, and the first long-term deposit arrived in 2001. In 2025 the collection was one of the lenders to a Miró retrospective in Tokyo.

Exhibition and next steps

The new works expand the current Joan Miró: Círculos show along two of its axes, 'Abierto y Cerrado' and 'Ritmo'. Teresa Montaner, who curates the exhibition, described the Miró of this period in these terms.

“It allows us to understand the experimenting Miró of 1950 to 1970, a Miró who questions matter and never settled for what he had achieved.”

Sara Puig said the ten-year term would open new lines of research and keep the collection moving. Maribel López Zambrana, who took up the director's post this October, said collaboration with international experts and research would be one of the institution's priorities. She called the new works a clear example of the foundation's dynamism and its constant capacity to transform, and said they help explain what Miró represented for 20th-century art history. The Katsuta works are not shown in a separate room but within the museum's usual route, so visitors will meet them alongside the rest of the Miró holdings.