The history of avant-garde art during the first half of the twentieth century placed, among other considerations, the replacement of Europe (and PAR as its indisputable artistic capital) by the United States (with New York occupying the same centrality). In this process, three Spanish artists (Pablo Picasso, Salvador DALí and Joan MIRó) had a m utmost relevance, coming to embody not only many of the avant-garde 'isms' but, above all, a vital attitude, a way of understanding those times of utopia and crisis.