2023-09-16 10:48:40
The world of culture cries the death at the age of 92 of the businessman and patron Antoni Vila Casas, who leaves behind an exceptional work in favor of Catalan art and four museums spread between Barcelona, Palafrugell and Torroella de Montgrí. The transfer, which took place last Thursday, was announced in the morning from Friday to Saturday by the foundation that bears his name through social networks, with a message that reads “we will continue working to be worthy of his legacy, his commitment to art and society and his ambition for the future”.
Born on November 27, 1930 in Barcelona, in a family of the Catalan bourgeoisie dedicated to the textile industry, Vila Casas was a prestigious pharmaceutical entrepreneur, but he directed his life towards the support of contemporary art, becoming one of the most important patrons in the country, although he did not like this word “at all” and preferred to define himself as a philanthropist.
With a vocation of service to Catalan culture that made up for the shortcomings of the institutions, he treasured around 3,000 pieces of art, always by Catalan artists and of his timeand to display them he wove a cultural map with four museums in old factories and rehabilitated palaces, with one foot in the Empordà and the other in the capital.
Antoni Vila Casas receives the distinction of Adoptive Son of Palafrugell
His fortune came from the pharmaceutical industry. In 1960, he created a pharmaceutical laboratory, Prodesfarma, which, among other medicines, was dedicated to the manufacture of Tepazepan, the first drug that treated anxiety and depression at the same time.
His pharmaceutical holding merged with Almirall laboratories in the nineties and Vila Casas collapsed in the support of health research, the purchase of art and the promotion of a multitude of cultural initiativeswith collaborations with entities and institutions such as Ibercamera, Temporada Alta, or the Joan Miró Foundation, to which he pledged to donate one million euros between 2019 and 2030 to enhance the center of what he considered to be the “number 1” of Catalan painters.
Art purchases until 2030
In 1998, he rehabilitated the modernist building Casa Felip, in Barcelona’s Eixample, where his foundation’s headquarters are located. At the same time, that same year he inaugurated a small sculpture museum in Ca la Tona, in Pals, whose collection he later moved to Can Mario, in Palafrugell.
It continued in 2000 with the museum at Palau Solterra in Torroella de Montgrí, a 15th century civil palace now dedicated to photography, and later, in 2002, with the Volart Space, the first area open to the public of the Vila Casas Foundation in Barcelona, intended for painting exhibitions.
At the end of 2008 he inaugurated the Volart 2 Space and, a year later, in 2009, he completed the museum spaces project with the inauguration of Can Framis, a contemporary painting museum located in an old textile factory at 22@, in Barcelona.
Antoni Vila Casas was a member of the Royal Catalan Academy of Fine Arts of Sant Jordi, of the Royal Academy of Pharmacy of Catalonia and in 1996 he received the Grand Cross of the Order of Civil Merit, in 1999 the Cross of Sant Jordi, and in 2004 the Montblanc Patronage Award. His last major recognition was last year, when he received the Gold Medal from the Generalitat.
Antoni Vila Casas, who had always said that he did not want his death to pass until he was buried, left two orders to his executors: that the Foundation continue to buy works until 2030, so that the collection covers an entire century of Catalan artand the second, to unwrap the bronze sculpture he commissioned almost two decades ago from the Olot artist Rosa Serra when she was diagnosed with lymphoma, for when she was gone.
As he himself explained in an interview with Lluís Busquets i Grabulosa and Enric Calzada i Saavedra published in 2017 in the Diari de Girona, once it was healed he did not have the heart to expose it to the Palafrugell museum. He left her wrapped, “like a pharaoh’s mummy”, with a blue blanket and since then, she has rested in Can Mario, waiting for the moment.
“I will run out before my money”
A relationship “based on generosity” with Torroella and Palafrugell
“In 1960 I bought a house in l’Escala and, since then, every weekend I went to spend it in Empordà lands, without exception», explained Antoni Vila Casas himself to Eudald Camps, art critic of Girona newspaperin an interview for the Empordà publication Ut 2020. Also linked to Pals, where he had a house and tried to open the first museum -«when I offered them to fill the old house [Ca la Tona] of sculptures they didn’t take me seriously and rejected it», he remembered-, established over the years “a relationship of generosity” with Torroella de Montgrí and Palafrugell, two of the foundation’s headquarters.
This was remembered this Saturday by its mayors, Jordi Colomí and Juli Fernández, who agreed to highlight the affable treatment of Vila Casas and “total involvement” since the foundation with the cultural and social life of the two municipalities.
“He had a temperament that was very close to the people of Emporda and the foundation has never said no to what has been asked of it from the town hall or the entities of Torroella”, said Colomí, who highlighted the fluid relationship between the cultural promoter and the council and the “very important loss” that his death entails.
In turn, Fernández too emphasized his dedication “to culture and country”. “The museum perfectly complements a municipality that works for culture, that betting on Can Mario was key”, said the mayor of Palafrugell, who in February he named him Adoptive Son of the municipality and has decreed three days of mourning to remember him.
Antoni Vila Casas, pharmaceutical entrepreneur, patron of Catalan art and above all committed to the country and its freedom, has left us. My thanks to his services to Catalonia and culture, which made him deserving of the Generalitat’s Gold Medal last year. pic.twitter.com/CZ4WAJdOpZ
— Pere Aragonès and Garcia ???? (@perearagones) September 15, 2023
Antoni Vila Casas, great collector and patron of art, has left us a reference that through the Foundation @vilacasas has committed to the diffusion of Catalan art. It was a great pleasure to meet him. A big hug to his family and friends, his legacy lives on. https://t.co/DN8kvKA58I
— Natalia Garriga (@natalia_garriga) September 15, 2023
How sad to learn of the death of the beloved Antoni Vila Casas, pillar of countless artistic and cultural initiatives in the country and soul of the Foundation @vilacasas. The country is indebted to his altruism. Thank you for that and may the earth rest in peace. Hugs to family and friends https://t.co/wtDol8521v
— Laura Borràs ???? (@LauraBorras) September 15, 2023
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