Rose Bru. Overcome the distance

The exhibition is dedicated to the work and figure of the Catalan-Chilean artist Roser Bru i Llop (Barcelona, 1923 – Santiago de Chile, 2021). Roser Bru was born in Barcelona and, at a very young age, experienced her first family exile in Paris during the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera. Upon returning to Barcelona, the family lived intensely through the proclamation of the Republic and subsequently a second and definitive exile that would take them, first to France and then to Chile, aboard the Winnipeg, a ship chartered by Pablo Neruda, who at that time was consul in Paris.

Roser Bru studied Fine Arts in Santiago and maintained a close friendship with Neruda, as well as with other Catalan exiles, especially the writer Montserrat Abelló. In fact, although she developed her entire artistic career in Chile, Bru always kept alive her Catalan roots and her connections with Catalan artists and writers. Her early work was influenced by the iconography of Catalan Romanesque art, especially the totemic figures of the Virgin Mary, as well as by a clear influence of Catalan Informalism, particularly the work of Tàpies, which she discovered on a first return trip to Catalonia in 1958.

As a painter and printmaker, she became one of the most prominent and recognised artists in Chile, where she was awarded the National Prize for Plastic Arts in 2015. In 2018 she received the Gold Medal for Merit in the Fine Arts from Spain, in recognition and tribute to her career. Five years later, she was awarded the Creu de Sant Jordi by the Government of Catalonia.

Bru died at the age of 98 in 2021. Last year, the centenary of her birth was celebrated in Chile, and this is now extended with the exhibition at the Museu d’Art de Girona.

The exhibition at the Museu d’Art de Girona, titled “Roser Bru. Overcoming Distance,” allows works by Bru to be seen again in Catalonia after almost 20 years. The show, co-curated by Àlex Mitrani and Inés Ortega-Márquez, aims to highlight Roser Bru’s Catalan origins, as well as the emotional and artistic ties she maintained with Catalonia. At the same time, it seeks to recover her figure and career through a proposal structured around three thematic axes —female iconographies, democratic claims, and humanistic and geographical references— aiming to show the scope of Roser Bru’s work and to bring it back into focus in Catalonia.

The exhibition project has been developed with the support of the Embassy of Chile in Spain and the Ministry of Culture of Chile, and in collaboration with the Roser Bru Foundation in Chile, as well as with special support from the Department of Culture of the Government of Catalonia, and the involvement of the Institut Ramon Llull and Casa Amèrica Catalunya, among others.

The exhibition brings together and presents in Girona a significant body of works and prints by the artist, as well as documents and objects, most of them from Chile. In total, 30 paintings and 40 prints of various formats are shown, most of them owned by the Roser Bru Foundation in Chile, along with loans of outstanding works from museums and private collections in Chile. These are presented together with around 25 paintings, prints, and documents from national museums, such as the Museo Nacional Reina Sofía in Madrid, the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya, the Biblioteca de Catalunya, and various Catalan private collections, which highlight Bru’s enduring connection with her homeland.

In total, the exhibition brings together nearly one hundred works, prints, and documents by Roser Bru, and it is expected to be one of the most notable exhibitions of the season.