Miro’s immersion into the prevailing Parisian scene was perfectly timed.  Andre Breton’s First Surrealist Manifesto was written in the fall of 1924, and “The Birth of the World” produced in 1925.  Predating by decades the “action painting” of Jackson Pollock, the background is a grey morass of pouring, brushing, flinging gestures to signal the explosive nature of creation, acting as the stage on which his floating shapes take their place.  Acquired by MOMA as a gift from the artist in 1972, it justifies its place of honor in this show.