Authors of the catalogue: Carme Clusellas, director of the Girona Art Museum and Pilar Parcerisas, curator of the exhibition.
On April 23, 1976, the first issue of the newspaper Avui was published, the first Catalan-language newspaper after the Franco dictatorship. The newspaper was born under the pressure of a large part of Catalan society and received broad support, including that of artists. Practically all the artists of the time, in fact, responded to a previous call to donate a work to help consolidate the company. This was the origin of the art collection of the newspaper Avui . In a short time, the bulk of the donated works formed a collection that was very chronologically coherent, but also very representative from an artistic point of view. For this reason, in 2011, and after the bankruptcy of the company Premsa Catalana SA, publisher of the newspaper, the Generalitat de Catalunya decided to acquire, at a price below market, the 604 works that then constituted the collection. This initiative avoided the disintegration of a historically and artistically significant collection and also a possible export of works outside Catalonia.
After the acquisition, the collection was divided into two large blocks. The first block consisted of the 24 original covers that the newspaper commissioned from various Catalan artists over twenty years. The entire collection was deposited at the Museum of the History of Catalonia, which in 2011 dedicated an exhibition in which the originals were related to the published covers and which emphasized the more historical side of the newspaper.
The rest of the works, the main bulk, were deposited at the Museu d’Art de Girona, in order to reinforce its collection with works of contemporary art. The lack of space in the Museum, however, forced the works to be kept in the custody of the monastery of Vilabertran, where they had been deposited since 1991 and where they had been exhibited on a rotating basis until 2004. Since then, the works have been preserved in the warehouses of Vilabertran and, although they have been loaned out occasionally, the set has not been shown again in an exhibition.
In 2019, the Girona Art Museum wants to shed new light and visibility on this rich and varied collection. The timing is ideal, just as the city of Girona is working on the project for a contemporary art museum and coinciding with a general interest among Catalan museum institutions in Catalan art from the second half of the 20th century, which is rarely found in public collections.
The catalogue can be purchased at the Museu d’Art shop and also online at the Generalitat de Catalunya bookstore.
