Figurations in the Parés Room: neither fossil nor smoke

Barcelona,

To merge the old and the new, tradition and modernity, because without modernity tradition would become a fossil and, without tradition, modernity would be smoke that leaves no trace.

That would be the function that, according to Josep M. Junoy, the Barcelona Sala Parés would have to fulfill after its reopening in 1925, after being transferred by Juan Bautista Parés to the Maragall brothers and having remained somewhat removed from the city’s artistic circuit during the previous decade.

What was the dean of Catalan galleries then, just a century ago, began the challenge of modernizing itself, both in its image and in its operation and in the line of its exhibitions. These would focus, from that moment on, on continuing authors with nineteenth-century roots (with all their derivatives), on contemporary classicisms, the New Objectivity and, more specifically, on the most disruptive avant-garde art.

In this way, to study the development of figuration in Catalonia in the first half of the last century, and especially in the key decades of the twenties and thirties, it is very necessary to pay attention to the proposals of the Sala Parés; Some are summarized in his exhibition “Figures between wars 1914-1945”, which can be visited there until February and curated by Sergio Fuentes Milà. It establishes links between the paradigmatic change that marked the beginning of the Maragall period in the history of this space and the richness of Catalan figuration of the time, completely heterogeneous and in search of new forms, sometimes in conflict.

It was that 1925 when that gallery, in order to regain clientele, attract new audiences and disseminate the work of young creators who proposed a renewed figuration, began to organize a series of special exhibitions that, in addition, made up for the lack of official group exhibitions in Barcelona: these were the Autumn Salons, whose first edition took place in October 1926. Their ultimate objective was to present the evolution of Catalan figurative painting, visibly reinforcing that dialogue between tradition and modernity in full. interwar period in Europe and the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera in Spain.

The majority of the artists invited were young, reducing the presence of established artists as much as possible, and the motto of the exhibitions was: The Salon d’Automne is the most significant manifestation of modern Catalan art.

Fifty authors were part of its first edition, among them Emili Bosch Roger, Joaquín Sunyer, Joaquín Torres-García, Rafael Benet, José Mompou, Salvador Dalí and Pablo Gargallo. From Dalí they showed themselves Girl sewing and Figure in some rocksa clear example of the tensions between some of the present languages and the expectations of the more traditional public, without leaving the field of figuration.

Most of the paintings compiled were close to noucentisme, although some authors were already part of the group of evolutionists, defenders of subjectivity and renewal, or of the Courbet Group, who sought to transform said noucentisme by imbibing themselves with the French revolutionary attitude.

The second Salon d’Automne (1927) was the result of an even more careful and superior selection of works. Artists who had recently joined as recurring protagonists of the Sala Parés programming joined, such as Josep de Togores; others would do so during the following years: Manolo Hugué, Pere Pruna, Pere Crèichames or Francesc Domingo are some.

Also that time, Dalí’s works were the most groundbreaking: Honey is sweeter than blood and Apparatus and handwhich clearly evokes onanism, shocked many viewers. And the following year the same thing would happen, then on account of Big toe, beach, moon and rotten bird and unsatisfied desires; The latter is currently part of the collections of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and, at the time, was censored in Parés in view of previous experiences. The surprise and scandal that Dalí always aroused were part of this center’s strategy to fight the stigma of a traditional gallery anchored in the past.

Later collectives that definitively questioned Noucentista idealism adhered to the same spirit, although they had less echo. The Salon of the Evolutionists (1931), the Salon of the Independents (1931 and 1933), with painters such as Carme Cortès and Montserrat Casanova, and the Mirador Salons (1933 and 1936) alternated with individual works by established and regular artists from previous generations, such as Santiago Rusiñol, Ramon Casas or Joaquim Mir, and with tribute exhibitions such as those dedicated to Antoni Gaudí (1927), Dionís Baixeras (1932), Ricard Canals (1933) or Gargallo (1935). New additions were, for their part, Marià Pidelaserra, Mariano Andreu, Josep Llorens Artigas or, years later, Josep Amat.

The desire for modernization and the desire for memory allowed the gallery to expand its range of audiences and collectors in those years. Covering all the figurative production born in Catalonia may sound ambitious and excessive, but it was an effective and commercial proposal until the outbreak of the Civil War.

The 1910s and 1920s would bring approaches that sought to overcome Mediterranean purism and incorporate the Cézannian roots and Cubist formulas as a new basis for experimentation; Even so, the crossings between all these aesthetic lines in the pursuit of a modern classicism were continuous. The Picasso influence, the first exhibition of Cubist art (1912), the Exposition d’Art Français (1917), the emergence of the avant-garde and the fact that Barcelona became a refuge for many foreign creators during the First World War were essential at that stage.

Likewise, the connection with Paris was key and the presence of Catalans in Montparnasse reinforced that link. We can mention Manuel Humbert, Pruna and Togores, but also the Salamanca-born Celso Lagar or the painter of Russian origin Olga Sacharoff. At times they established close relationships with Marc Chagall, André Masson, Guillaume Apollinaire, Amedeo Modigliani, Max Jacob and, of course, with Juan Gris and Pablo Picasso. By then Montparnasse had displaced Montmartre as the nerve center of artistic modernity in the French capital.

Of this collection of names, that of José de Togores is fundamental in this current exhibition at the Sala Parés, since his figurative proposal, although complex and changing over the years, perfectly embodies that closeness between tradition and modernity.

We can also highlight Hat Lady (around 1917) by Olga Sacharoff, almost a manifesto of the new painting, a turn of modernity with respect to Modigliani’s portraits and, in part, almost a prelude to the New Objectivity. The hieratic characters with empty gaze, the forcefulness and volumetric work of the bodies that respond to a careful and superior order also resonate in Mariano Andreu’s production.

Olga Sacharoff. Lady with the hat, circa 1917

Although the Sala Parés closed its doors during the Civil War, it continued its exhibition activity in cities such as London and Buenos Aires and the gallery still offered an exhibition in the fall of 1936. It was a monograph on the Argentine Gustavo Cochet imposed by the CNT, since this painter, who had previously exhibited in Dalmau, was one of the union leaders of the plastic artists of that group and also carried out intense activity in the FAI.

The anthology occupied all the spaces in the room and was made up of some ninety paintings and engravings linked, in terms of themes, to the proletariat of rural Catalonia; a selection can also be seen now.

In a similar vein, Marià Pidelaserra made the consequences of the war one of the main themes of much of her production, arriving at very personal solutions that are linked to German expressionism in her series The Lostalready carried out in post-war times. During the conflict, the landscapes of the Pyrenees were common in his canvases.

In the forties, Sala Parés tried to reinforce its position within the sector with a continuous line. He recovered the artists he had shown before and painters from the late 19th century, while continuing to exhibit abroad to reinforce Catalan figuration within the international circuit.

Left behind were the more radical modernization attempts of the autumn salons of the 1920s and the occasional inclusion of some avant-garde languages or groups of independent and more disruptive artists. This center continued to consolidate itself as the last stronghold of naturalism in Barcelona; In the words of the commissioner, between the prestige/stigma of tradition and the need/fear of modernity.