Group of Women (Groupe de femmes)
July 15, 1938
Oil on canvas
27.6 × 35.6 cm (10.9 × 14 in)
SEE IT IN PERSON
● On view now — Collection Gallery, Room 11, East Wall
Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia · verified July 2026
Discussion
FROM THE BARNES FOUNDATION’S CATALOG
Here Joan Miró depicted the figures' flailing gestures against a smoky background in order to evoke the calamity of aerial bombardment, a frequent occurrence during the Spanish Civil War (1936–39). The iconography of Group of Women echoes the forms of Pablo Picasso's Guernica (1937, Museo Reina Sofía, Madrid), which infamously portrayed the bombing of a Basque town. The top-right figure's upturned head, with her tongue stretched into a scream, could be seen as a reference to Guernica 's sword-tongued horse and wailing mother.
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