A compact, richly illustrated study of Joan Miró’s work, tracing the movement from early Catalan landscapes and still lifes through surrealism, abstraction, poetry, sculpture and the later language of signs, birds, women, stars and strange floating bodies.

Penrose is attentive to the discipline underneath the apparent freedom, the way Miró’s forms can look playful while carrying pressure, eroticism, politics, dream logic and violence. A very useful introduction for anyone wanting to understand Miró beyond the “nice shapes and colours” version. The book places him in relation to Paris surrealism, Spanish/Catalan modernism, abstraction, collage, sculpture, poetry and 20th-century avant-garde experimentation.

Good for artists, designers, art-history readers, surrealism people, and anyone drawn to the line between childlike mark-making and serious formal intelligence.

Thames & Hudson paperback, reprinted 1995. Originally published 1970 and 1985. Illustrated throughout, including colour plates, black-and-white images, chronology, bibliography and index. Good second-hand condition, with light cover rubbing/handling and minor edge wear.