Girona will be exhibiting for the first time this summer 150 works of the controversial Santos Torroella art collection, in a temporal show which will vindicate the legacy of the critic, historian and poet. The exhibition, which will also give preeminence to the documentary heritage of the collection, will follow the paths of the avant-garde from the early twentieth century to the 1960s. Jaume Vidal. Works by I look, Picasso, Dalí O Picabia they will talk to the huge correspondence and photographs from Santos Torroella’s personal archive. This is the first of three exhibitions to be held until 2025 to publicize the municipal collection of contemporary art, pending the museum at the Casa Pastors.
There has been a lot of talk about the Santos Torroella art collection. But more for the controversy surrounding the purchase, for which the City Council paid 3.61 million euros (MEUR), than for everything that integrates the collection and the archive-library of the critic, historian and poet. A huge legacy, embracing 1,393 works of art and up to 30,000 documents.
Now, Girona City Council will be exhibiting part of this collection for the first time in the temporary rooms of the History Museum. The exhibition can be seen from July 16 to December 31, and will be the first of three that will allow to know – and bring closer to the public – the municipal fund of contemporary art that will be the backbone of the future museum that will be held in the Shepherds House.
Comissariada per Rosa Maria Gutiérrez i Jaume Vidal, l’exposició del fons Santos Torroella es planteja com “una descoberta i un itinerari”, que resseguirà els camins de les avantguardes catalana i espanyola des dels inicis del segle XX i fins als anys 60. Segons According to Vidal, the idea is to show “a collector’s office”, where the works in the collection – there will be about 150 – dialogue with the documentation that Santos Torroella treasured for years “and complement each other”.
Picasso, Dalí and Miró
From the turn of the century to the recovery of the avant-garde stunted by the Civil War, the exhibition will trace the trajectory of Santos Torroella and all the artists, movements and styles that span these six decades. Picasso, Dalí and Miró will be some of the ‘leitmotifs’ of the show – as Vidal has specified – which will be divided into three chapters, and which will have its “strong core” in the stage of artistic recovery after the Civil War.
It was then that Santos Torroella directed the publishing house Cobalto, which also became the support and platform of the group Dau al Set. The Altamira School, the poetry congresses and the IX Milan Triennial (where the Santos Torroella stand received an award) will also be present in this part of the exhibition.
Vidal emphasizes the value of Santos Torroella’s legacy. “Rarely does a private collection allow us to follow this itinerary,” he says, referring to the avant-garde. And in fact, a tasting of the works -paintings, but also sculptures- that can be seen is already advancing. They are signed by artists such as Rafael Barradas, Francis Picabia, Norah Borges, Antoni Tàpies, Modest Cuixart, Joan Ponç. Josep Guinovart, Rafael Bartolozzi and Mathias Goeritz, among others.
Until 2025
The exhibition of the Santos Torroella collection will be followed by two more exhibitions. The second, which can be seen between October next year and May 2024, will be dedicated to the collection of art critic and promoter Àngel Marsà. And the third, which will take place between October of that year and May 2025, will revolve around the legacy of the artist Josep Niebla.
With these exhibitions, the City Council wants to make known part of its collection of contemporary art (which brings together a total of up to 8,782 pieces) and which will be the cornerstone of the future museum in the Casa Pastors. “We want discourses to be created between the works and, in addition, to serve to show the role that the museum can play,” said Carme Sais, the council’s director of museums.
In parallel to these temporary exhibitions, a series of lectures, guided tours and a catalog of each will also be published. In addition, the City Council will also digitize all the pieces and documents that make up the three art collections – with the one by Santos Torroella, it has already been done – and will make them available to all citizens. “It will be a virtual museum, a corpus that will be accumulated and stored and that will be accessible to everyone,” said Sais.
Girona City Council is working with the intention of making the future museum at Casa Pastors a reality in 2026. This year, the archaeological interventions are expected to be completed, and in 2023 and 2024 the adaptation works will be carried out. Then it will be time to finalize the museum project and move it to the rooms.