It was at night, at one in the morning.” Thus begins the story of one of the most intense episodes related to Pablo Picasso's Barcelona 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 works from the Col·lecció Jordi Costa of the Taller de Picasso gallery in Barcelona, are shown in public for the first time in five decades in a presentation ceremony today Monday at the Oriente hotel on La Rambla. 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 homage to Picasso and to bear witness to those historical events. “These works are still valid because it is as important today as it was 50 years ago to observe Barcelona with that intelligent, generous and critical gaze of Picasso; and Taller de Picasso shows it again trying to go further”, details Hilda Bencomo, owner of the Col·lecció Jordi Costa del Taller de Picasso in Barcelona. “It is a look at a city full of trompe l'oeil – she continues -, where it is very difficult to see reality, we need all the looks 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 building that housed the art room and that alluded to Picasso's first workshop in the city, belonged to Vicenç Martínez, one of the great goalscorers in the history of FC Barcelona. He was Jordi Costa's grandfather.
From the first moment, Picasso's Workshop became the epicenter of artists from all over the world and gave opportunities to young people. During those first months, artists as varied as the Indian ceramicist Himmat Singh Shrimal, sent by the Maharaja of Jaipur, exhibited their work; the Japanese Katsumi Mamine, who presented some drawings inspired by the sardana; the 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, to which one of the posters, the work of Luis Díaz, alludes, which were created for the occasion and which are now being presented again on the occasion of the year Picasso 2023. In fact, the cover of the The program of events for that tribute 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.
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 notified us and we found everything burned”.
This film was financed by the clandestine sale of the Atentados contra la cultura dossier. The 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 in the face of the printed word or the film image,” he wrote.
That attack against the Picasso Workshop went around the world. On November 28, 1971, The New York Times headlined: "Picasso Exhibitor Under Attack." 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. Le Monde spoke of an action by "the Anti-Marxist Fighting 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 Homenaje a Picasso, 1972 to him.
In the gallery on Calle de la Plata, on October 19, 1972, an exhibition by Joan Cruspinera was inaugurated in which he illustrated texts by Rafael Alberti, Raimon, Ovidi Montllor and Pi de la Serra. On the commemorative poster he portrayed the looks of Picasso and the fragment of Alberti's poem Los ojos de Picasso is read: "He is always all eyes / he does not take away his eyes / he eats the words with his eyes / he is the seven eyes / he is the hundred a thousand eyes in two eyes / the great voyeur”. It is also full of Picasso's famous quotes about art.
Far from being intimidated, the gallery on Calle de la Plata wanted to issue a message of resistance to violence and defense of freedom in those last years of Francoism. Apart from the allusions to the Nova Cançó movement, the program for the tribute to Picasso in 1972 was illustrated with poems by Blas de Otero, such as I ask for peace and the word. Even more significant was the dissemination, in Catalan, of the verses of Vaca suïssa by Pere Quart (Joan Oliver), a poet symbol of the anti-Franco 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, in 1966.
Half a century after those episodes, the setting chosen to present the historical posters is the Oriente de la Rambla hotel, because it was where the Picasso Workshop organized the meetings of the Barretina de Xeixa in the 1970s, where they discussed art, literature, gastronomy and the social and political situation at the end of the Franco regime and the democratic transition. “Picasso's workshop was a space of freedom at a difficult time”, remarks Hilda Bencomo. In those meetings, a character was honored, who was put on the barretina, such as the writer Maria Aurèlia Capmany or the painter Antoni Tàpies. Both men and women were given prominence.
“If there is a place in the world where we can meet all eyes, it is on the Rambla”, Bencomo points out, “Jordi Costa decided to organize these events with the participation of people who were looking for a space of freedom”. Fermín Villar, president of Amics de la Rambla, highlights the initiative “by Taller de Picasso to remind again (and make the people of Barcelona see) that the Rambla is central, not only geographically, but also emotionally”.
