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Miró sculptures in Marivent Palace
Works by Joan Miró will be on display in the gardens
The gardens at Marivent palace will finally open after Easter, and there is a surprise in store for all visitors as the Miró family has loaned 12 sculptures by the surrealist artist to be exhibited there.
Marivent Palace, located in Cala Major, was built in the 1920s and is currently used as the Spanish royal family summer residence. The king and the Balearic government reached an agreement in 2015 to open its gardens to the public but it has taken longer that expected to get them ready to welcome visitors, so they will not open until after Easter.
The 32,000 m2 gardens, showcasing over 40 different Mediterranean plants, will now host 12 bronze sculptures by Joan Miró. These works of art were, until now, located inside private houses. They include the work "Personage", a two-metre-high figure produced at the Paris foundry where Alberto Giacometti and Jean Arp used to work.
The Catalán surrealist artist spent the last years of his life in Mallorca. The Fundació Pilar i Joan Miró, a museum exhibiting paintings, sculptures and drawings by this unique master, is located near Marivent Palace in the same beach resort of Cala Major. According to the artist's grandson, Miró and former king Juan Carlos I were good friends: "During the Transition [when Spain became a democracy after the death of Franco in 1975], they saw each other frequently in my grandfather's workshop in Palma, and my grandfather visited Marivent. In fact, my grandfather gave him a wonderful painting as a present."
Over 9,000 m2 of the gardens will be open to the public for free throughout the year, except during Easter and from the July15th to September 15th, when the royal family take up residence in Mallorca.
