Letter from Joan Miró, top, and the ceramic mural Night and Day (1957–59). Guggenheim International Award, 1956. Exhibition records. A0003. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum Archives, New York
Finding 72: Guggenheim International Award
April 10, 2012
In 1959, Joan Miró's ceramic mural Night and Day won the 1958 Guggenheim International Award (GIA). Established in 1956 as both a recognition of outstanding achievements in the visual arts and an important manifestation of international goodwill, the GIA functioned as a global art competition that awarded $10,000 to an artist whose painting was selected by an international jury and subsequently approved by the Guggenheim Foundation. In this letter, Miró writes to James Johnson Sweeney, second director of the Guggenheim Museum, thanking him for the award. The final GIA was awarded in 1964, after which funds were reallocated to acquiring works from exhibitions for the collection.
—Francine Snyder, Director of Library and Archives