Famous Residents in Mallorca — 6 of Our Favourites

His work before 1920 shows wide-ranging influences, including the bright colours of the Fauves, the broken forms of cubism, and the powerful, flat two-dimensionality of Catalan folk art and Romanesque church frescoes of his native Spain.

He moved to Paris in 1920, where, under the influence of surrealist poets and writers, he evolved his mature style. Miró drew on memory, fantasy, and the irrational to create works of art that are visual analogues of surrealist poetry. These dreamlike visions, such as Harlequin's Carnival or Dutch Interior, often have a whimsical or humorous quality, containing images of playfully distorted animal forms, twisted organic shapes, and odd geometric constructions.

The forms of his paintings are organized against flat neutral backgrounds and are painted in a limited range of bright colours, especially blue, red, yellow, green, and black. Amorphous amoebic shapes alternate with sharply drawn lines, spots, and curlicues, all positioned on the canvas with seeming nonchalance. Miró later produced highly generalized, ethereal works in which his organic forms and figures are reduced to abstract spots, lines, and bursts of colours.

Miró also experimented in a wide array of other media, devoting himself to etchings and lithographs for several years in the 1950s and also working in watercolour, pastel, collage, and paint on copper and masonite. His ceramic sculptures are especially notable, in particular, his two large ceramic murals for the UNESCO building in Paris (Wall of the Moon and Wall of the Sun, 1957-59).

Miró died in Son Abrines, Palma de Mallorca, Spain, on December 25, 1983, after spending the rest of his later years on the Island. In 1992 the Fundació Pilar i Joan Miró was established in Mallorca.

Of course, California was there already but it was Serra, sent there at the age of 54 after 14 years in Mexico, who established the missions which have grown into some of Americans biggest cities, including San Diego and San Francisco. A museum in his hometown of Petra tells the story.

Serra was beatified in 1988, the first step on the road to sainthood.

Extract from a letter sent to his friend Julio Fontana on the 15th of November, 1838;

'My dear friend,
I'm in Palma, between Palma trees, cedar, aloe, orange, lemon, fig and pomegranate trees. The trees that will never grow in, The Garden of the Plants, there in Paris.
The sky is turquoise, the sea blue, the mountains emerald, and the air? The air is as blue as the sky. The sun shines all day and people are dressed as in the summer time, because here it is hot.
At night, for long hours, I can hear songs and music of guitars. The houses have large balconies from where the vines hang. The walls of the houses belong to the Arab domination and the city, as everything here reminds you of Africa.'

The son of French émigré father (a schoolteacher working in Poland) and a cultured Polish mother, he grew up in Warsaw, taking childhood music lessons in Bach and the Viennese Classics from Wojciech Zywny and Jósef Elsner before entering the Conservatory (1826-9). By this time he had performed in local salons and composed several rondos, polonaises and mazurkas. Public and critical acclaim increased during the years 1829-30 when he gave concerts in Vienna and Warsaw, but his despair over the political repression in Poland, coupled with his musical ambitions, led him to move to Paris in 1831.

There, with practical help from Kalkbrenner and Pleyel, praise from Liszt, Fétis and Schumann and introductions into the highest society, he quickly established himself as a private teacher and salon performer. His legendary artist's image was enhanced by frail health (he had tuberculosis), attractive looks, sensitive playing, a courteous manner and the piquancy attaching to self-exile.

Of his several romantic affairs, the most talked about was that with the novelist George Sand (Aurore Dudevant) though whether he was truly drawn to women must remain in doubt. Between 1838 and 1847 their relationship, with a strong element of the maternal on her side, coincided with one of his most productive creative periods. He gave few public concerts, though his playing was much praised, and he published much of his best music simultaneously in Paris, London and Leipzig. The breach with Sand was followed by a rapid deterioration in his health and a long visit to Britain (1848). His funeral at the Madeleine was attended by nearly 3000 people.

No great composer has devoted himself as exclusively to the piano as Chopin and he was admired for his great originality. By all accounts an inspired improviser, he composed while playing, writing down his thoughts only with difficulty. While his own playing style was famous for its subtlety and restraint, its exquisite delicacy in contrast with the spectacular feats of pianism then reigning in Paris, most of his works have a simple texture of accompanied melody.

Born Zelazowa Wola, 1 March 1810; died Paris, 17 October 1849.

Nadal spent his early life training in Majorca, turning down an opportunity to train at the highly regarded school in Barcelona and the associated funding this would have brought from the Spanish Tennis Federation. He turned professional at the age of 15 and won his first Grand Slam (French Open) at the age of 19.

Despite the travelling demands on him, Nadal returns to Mallorca whenever he can, and stays with his family in their home in Manacor. When not playing tennis, Nadal enjoys football (major fan of Real Madrid and of course RCD Mallorca), playing golf, fishing and spending time with his friends. He owns a house in Porto Cristo on the east coast of Majorca, and has other property investments in the Dominican Republic and Mexico.

Nadal has set up a charitable foundation, the Fundacion Rafa Nadal, which helps socially disadvantaged children through the use of sport.

Devoting himself to prayer and study, he wrote in Catalan and Latin on everything from algebra to metaphysics; he is widely seen as the father of the Catalan language. Recalled to the court by Jaume II, he established an Oriental language school at Valldemossa and learnt Arabic with the help of a Moorish slave. He was stoned to death attempting to convert Muslims in Tunisia.

He began his writing whilst at school at Charterhouse where he experienced bullying. He was due to go to Oxford University but the First World War broke out in 1914 and Graves enlisted in the army. It was here that he became known as one of the first war poets, along with Siegfried Sassoon who was in his regiment.

His traumatic wartime experiences meant he took refuge in his writing, and he finally attended Oxford in 1919, studying English. By this time he was married to Nancy Nicholson with whom he had four children, but he soon had an affair with the poet Laura Riding and they ran off together to live in Deia, Mallorca.

It was here that he wrote many of his literary works, including I Claudius, his most successful commercial work. Graves and Riding left Mallorca in 1936 when the Spanish Civil War broke out and went to live in the USA. Their relationship fizzled out and Graves returned to England and married his second wife, Beryl Hodge. In 1946, they moved back to Deia.

Many other works were written and published, including The Greek Myths, a translation of the Rubaiyat (which proved to be highly controversial) and a collection of letters between Graves and Spike Milligan called Dear Robert, Dear Spike.

Towards the end of his life, he suffered from memory loss and died from heart failure on 7th December 1985. He is buried in the churchyard of Deia, which overlooks the sea. His house in Deia, Ca N'Alluny is now a museum devoted to his life.