Modest, affable and generous, Antoni Vila Casas shook his head from side to side, as if he wanted to downplay his importance, when asked about his status as the last great patron of Catalan art, a title that the pharmaceutical businessman and collector had earned. by hand, by dint of determination and enthusiasm. In a gesture as admirable as it was rare, in 1986 he gave a good part of his assets to the foundation that bears his name, initially dedicated to scientific dissemination issues in the field of health and which, starting in 2000, expanded to the promotion of art. contemporary Catalan, larger and more diverse thanks to him and the creation of four museum spaces: the Volart exhibition halls and the CanFramis museum in Barcelona, where he has his painting collection; Palau Solterra, in Torroella de Montgrí, dedicated to photography; and Can Mario, in Palafrugell, focused on sculpture. In recent years, still energetic but with his health increasingly decimated due to lymphoma that he had been suffering from for years, his great concern when visiting the doctor was to know if he would live long enough to be able to see the completion of one last project, a space that museum of which he barely wanted to give details. It could not be. His strength abandoned him this Thursday in Barcelona, where he died at the age of 92.
Son of a family of textile businessmen, whose father died when he was 11 years old, Antoni Vila Casas studied Pharmacy and in 1960 founded Laboratorios Prodes, from which, thanks largely to the success of tezatepán - which combined anxiolytics and antidepressants - he would end up raising the Prodesfarma empire, which in 1995 merged with Laboratorios Almirall. He could have gone even further, “but lymphoma stopped me,” he said. He was diagnosed when he was 73 years old and was told that he would not survive more than two years. He then sold his interest in the laboratories, and thanks to an experimental treatment he was able to live a long and fruitful second life as a philanthropist.
In recent years, Antoni Vila Casas has made a contribution of two million euros to the Vall d'Hebron Hospital to adapt the spaces dedicated to leukemia patients, and with the Fundació Miró he signed an agreement by which he committed to contribute one million euros until 2030, at a rate of 100,000 euros per year, for the restoration and enhancement of the center's collection. He has also collaborated with festivals such as Montaña Alta or Ibercàmera and with universities such as Pompeu Fabra and the UB.
Catalan and bullfighting, the latter a hobby that he lived intensely (he claimed it as part of Catalan culture) and led him to travel through Spain and the south of France following his idols, especially José Tomás, the businessman began to collect led by his hobby for painting but without a conscious desire to become a collector. “We had offices in Sant Just, huge premises, almost 4,000 square meters. I didn't know what to do with those walls, so I started buying paintings and when we left those premises I found, almost unintentionally, that I had more than 200 paintings," he said in an interview with La Vanguardia.
When Can Framis opened in 2009, a 22@ building whose rehabilitation cost 18 million euros, it had 600 paintings by authors such as Tàpies, Hernández Pijuan, Perejaume, Agustí Puig, Pedro Moreno, Santi Moix, Gonzalo Goytisolo, Julio Vaquero and Jaume Plensa, among many others. Since then the funds have not stopped growing, and today it has more than 3,500 pieces. His idea is that the Foundation stops purchasing in 2030.
As for the sculpture collection, the fault, he explained, lay with his ex-wife and his habit of filling the house with plants that, when watered, always ended up bulging the parquet. “I decided to change them for sculptures,” she recalled. Then he thought that given its size it deserved to be shown to the public and in 2000 he put an apartment in Pals, Ca la Tona, four years later moving it to Can Mario, in Palafrugell. After a period of uncertainty, the Palau Solterra was dedicated entirely to photography; while Can Framis and Volart, in Barcelona, have the purpose of promoting the artists in the collection.
Vila Casas bought simply letting himself be guided by what he liked, without caring if he was wrong or not, and without paying attention to fashions and much less to markets, always positioning himself next to the artists. “Many of the artists in my collection are from my generation, I have been able to live with them, learn about the evolution of their work in their workshops. That's where you see if a work is authentic or not,” he said.
“There are people who just want to make money. But me, not having children... I have had the freedom to do what I wanted without harming anyone,” he justified himself without imposture modesty. Along with the promotion of artists, for many of whom his support has been vital, Vila Casas had a sincere desire to serve the country that extended to the preservation of architectural heritage. All of the exhibition spaces of his Foundation are factory buildings or buildings of historical interest to the recovery of which he contributes. “I believe in values and these are only preserved in tradition,” he justified, and said that he had gotten here without a pre-designed plan (“in this case, I would not have achieved even half of it”), but that he had made his way by walking, step by step, without pre-established goals.” He never counted on public help, nor did he ask for it.
Awarded in September of last year with the Gold Medal of the Generalitat, Vila Casas decisively embraced the sovereigntist cause and was outraged by the unfair treatment that, according to him, former president Jordi Pujol was receiving. When they took away his office on Paseo de Gràcia, the industrialist could not bear to see him work in a goal and rented him for 150 euros the apartment on Calàbria Street, which was the first headquarters of his Foundation, and of which Bernat Puigdollers is currently its head. art director.
