"A pitchfork, a fork that has been carefully made by peasants - that's very important to me", he once commented. From his youth on he was to collect objects typical of island life: ceramics, woven baskets and simple household pottery. Above all, he loved the rustic style of the old Mallorcan house with its characteristic furniture. Such things were to influence his art more than any fluctuating fashions. "Folk art always moves me ... In this art their are no tricks ... it is so rich with possibilities. " Barbara Catoir is the author of "Conversations with Antoni Tapies". Miro was born in Barcelona in 1893 and studied there at the Lonja School of Fine Arts from 1912 onwards, and in the private school of Francesc Gall. Miro lived on and off in Paris from 1920 to the outbreak of World War II; there he became friends with poets and artists within Surrealist and Dadaist circles.