"It was at night, at one in the morning." Thus begins the story of one of the most intense episodes related to the Barcelona of Pablo Picasso and which, in 2023, half a century later, sees the light again coinciding with the acts to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the painter's death.
As if coming out of the tunnel of time, a series of historical posters from the years 1971 and 1972, which form part of the collection of the Col·lecció Jordi Costa del Taller de Picasso in Barcelona, are now on public display for the first time in five decades. They were created to honor Picasso for his 90th and 91st anniversary at a very troubled time, a time of attacks and attacks against bookstores and galleries in Spain related in some way to the artist from Malaga.
Now, these same posters serve to pay tribute to Picasso and to bear witness to those events. "These works are still valid because it is as important today as it was 50 years ago to observe Barcelona with Picasso's intelligent, generous and critical look; and Picasso's Workshop shows it again trying to go further", explains Hilda Bencomo, owner of the Col·lecció Jordi Costa from the Picasso Workshop in Barcelona, "is a look at a city full of trompe l'oeil, where it is very difficult to see reality, we need all the perspectives of these posters and more".
The year 1971 was hectic. On January 22, at just 21 years old, gallery owner Jordi Costa (1949-2015), inaugurated Taller de Picasso, precisely, with an exhibition of works by Pablo Picasso. The gallery logo was also Picassian. The building that housed the art room, and which in the past had housed Picasso's first studio in the city, was owned by Vicenç Martínez, one of the greatest goalscorers in the history of FC Barcelona. He was Jordi Costa's grandfather.
From the outset, Picasso's Workshop became the epicenter of artists from all over the world and a gallery that gave young people opportunities. During those first months, artists as varied as the Indian ceramicist Himmat Singh Shrimal, sent to Picasso's Workshop by none other than the Maharaja of Jaipur; the Japanese Katsumi Mamine, who presented some drawings inspired by the sardana dance; the Honduran surrealist painter Gregorio Sabillón; or Lluís Claramunt, who debuted with his first exhibition.
On October 25, the Picasso Workshop, the Barcelona City Council and the Reial Cercle Artístic came together to honor Picasso, who was already in his nineties. So they organized the activity 90 years of genius, which is alluded to by one of the posters, the work of Luis Diaz, which were created for the occasion and which are now being presented again in Picasso Year 2023.
In fact, the cover of the program of events paying homage to the painter in 1971 was also illustrated with a portrait of Picasso by the artist Alfonso Costa, another of the painters who passed through the Barcelona art gallery.
Among the activities, conferences, colloquiums, screenings were organized and the mayor of Barcelona, José María de Porcioles, inaugurated a plaque commemorating Pablo Picasso's first workshop on the facade of the gallery, at number 5 Calle de la Plata in Barcelona. Apart from Jordi Costa, the viscount of Güell, president of the Royal Artistic Circle, and especially the painter Manuel Pallarès, who had shared the workshop with Picasso in his youth, were present. In addition, from October 8 to 31, Joan Cruspinera, author of another tribute poster, exhibited in the gallery.
But then violence broke out. Spain was still mired in the Franco regime and, at the end of 1971, a dozen galleries and bookstores that dared to honor Picasso for his 90th birthday were attacked by far-right groups. There were three particularly significant attacks: against the engravings of the Vollard Suite exhibited at the Theo gallery in Madrid, against the Cinc d'Oros bookstore in Barcelona, and against Picasso's Workshop.
Jordi Costa's gallery was devastated by a fire caused by the launching of Molotov cocktails on November 22. At that time, the artist Ricard Vaccaro was exhibiting his work. No frame was saved.
In 1975, the Alternative Film Collective made the documentary A book is a weapon, in which Jordi Costa narrated that attack: "It was at night, at one in the morning. They told us and we found everything burned."
This film had been financed with the clandestine sale of the dossier Atentados contra la cultura, whose prologue is attributed to Manuel Vázquez Montalbán, who denounced the "attempts to stop the irreversible march of the whole of Spanish society towards democracy". "The ultras have tried to stop that process by raising smoke and noise screens at the printed word or film image," he wrote.
Months before, the Diario de Barcelona had published some statements by ultra-right youth who called for lighting "a great pyre as in Hitler's seizure of power", because "all the books are set on fire and everything is solved".
That attack against the Picasso Workshop went around the world. On November 28, 1971, The New York Times headlined: "Picasso Exhibitor Attacked." Even American newspapers from smaller cities picked up the story, such as The Blade, from Toledo, Ohio, which spoke of an attack "with gasoline bombs." A similar analysis was made by the Long Beach (California) Independent Press-Telegram.
Spanish migrant workers and exiles also received the news, for example through the newsletter of the Metallurgical Industrial Union of the Federal Republic of Germany or newspapers such as the Süddeutsche Zeitung.
Le Monde spoke of an action by "the Anti-Marxist Struggle Commandos" in a context in which "the Spanish regime is desperately trying to recover the great artists who voluntarily emigrated, such as Picasso", while Zurich's Neue Zürcher Zeitung pointed to "authors unknown". Others attributed the authorship to the Guerrilleros de Cristo Rey. The International Herald Tribune cited "right-wing extremists." And Le Socialiste spoke of "Franco hooliganism".
Picasso's workshop rose from its ashes and dared to organize another tribute to Pablo Picasso in 1972. A year had passed. In addition, at the initiative of Santiago Palet, the 1st International Rencontre de hommage à Picasso was organized in Vallauris (France), from September 25 to November 5, in response to the violent attack against the gallery. A collection of 400 rugs made by 280 artists, such as Joan Miró or Antoni Tàpies, was brought together, which could recently be seen in an exhibition at the Espais Volart in Barcelona. In 2012, the Museu Picasso also dedicated the exhibition Homage to Picasso, 1972.
In the gallery on Calle de la Plata, on October 19, 1972, another exhibition by Joan Cruspinera was inaugurated in which he illustrated texts by Rafael Alberti, Raimon, Ovidi Montllor and Pi de la Sierra. This is how in his poster, which portrays Picasso with multiple gazes, you can read a fragment of the poem Los ojos de Picasso: "He is always all eyes / he does not take away his eyes / he eats the words with his eyes / he is the seven eyes / is the hundred thousand eyes in two eyes / the great voyeur…"
After having suffered the attack the previous year, far from being intimidated, the gallery on Calle de la Plata once again paid homage to Picasso, with the clear intention of giving a message of resistance to violence and defense of freedom in those last years of Francoism. Even the commemorative poster that was published in 1972 is full of allusions to Picasso's free creative thought.
This is how it is also explained that the hand program of the acts of homage to Picasso was illustrated with poems by Blas de Otero, such as I ask for peace and the word or Liberty supposes or means equal conditions for the development of all men.
Even more significant was also the dissemination, in Catalan, of the verses of Vaca suïssa by Pere Quart (Joan Oliver), a poet who was a figure in opposition to the regime and a symbol of the anti-Francoist struggle. His poem had been a hymn of La Caputxinada, the confinement of students, teachers and intellectuals in the convent of the Capuchins of Sarrià, between March 9 and 11, 1966, where he recited his verses and shouted: "I am the bad milk cow!
In addition to illustrating Rafael Alberti, the exhibition also focused on Raimon, Ovidi Montllor and Quico Pi de la Serra in the context of the Nova Cançó, an artistic and musical movement that, during the Franco regime, promoted the demand for the use of Catalan through of the song. At that time, it had been almost ten years since Raimon sang Al vent for the first time, an emblematic theme of which this 2023 commemorates the 60th anniversary.
Half a century after those episodes, Barcelona once again pays homage to Pablo Picasso. The presentation of the historical posters from 1971 and 1972 will take place this Monday, February 20, at the Hotel Oriente on La Rambla, where the Picasso Workshop organized the meetings of the Barretina de Xeixa in the 1970s. In these meetings, they talked about art, literature, gastronomy and the social and political situation at the end of Francoism and the Transition.
"To defend one look is to defend them all, Picasso's Workshop was a space of freedom in a difficult moment of the Franco regime", remarks Hilda Bencomo, who points out: "Today's world has a very hard look on certain groups, like 50 years ago, with which these posters have not lost their validity at all".
At each meeting, a prominent personage was honored, to whom the beretina was worn, such as the writer Maria Aurèlia Capmany or the painter Antoni Tàpies, to whom the artist Pilar Perdices wore. In another constant in the history of Taller de Picasso, prominence was given to both men and women.
"If there is a place in the world where we can meet all eyes, it is on La Rambla", highlights the owner of the Picasso Workshop collection, "Jordi Costa decided to organize these events at the Hotel Oriente with the participation of all the people who They were also looking for a place of freedom where they could share complicity at a time when it was difficult to find spaces like this to overcome censorship".
Fermín Villar, president of Amics de la Rambla, welcomes that Picasso's Workshop is once again putting the cultural focus on this central promenade: "This initiative is special because it goes along the lines of placing La Rambla once again at the center of what happens in Barcelona In many aspects it continues to be like that, due to tourist activity, because of the Liceu, but La Rambla has a history closely linked to these meetings of people and Picasso was one of those people who, when he lived in Barcelona, could not be abstracted from La Boulevard".
Villar highlights the initiative "of Taller de Picasso to remind again (and make the people of Barcelona see) that the Rambla is central, not only geographically, but emotionally". "The centrality of La Rambla in Barcelona is undeniable and an event like this at the Hotel Oriente with posters from Taller de Picasso, a gallery that was located in an area that is one hundred percent influenced by La Rambla, is something to celebrate positively" , remark.
