Barcelona has a new space for art. And it is not just any place, but a neoclassical building located in the heart of the Gothic Quarter, built between 1886 and 1900 to house the Former Mercantile Credit Company.
The Martorell Palacelocated at Ample 11 facing the Plaza de la Mercé, it stands out for its large proportions, its symmetry and the distribution of the decorative elements in the central body of the main facade.
What surprises the most when you enter is the big one skylight with a spectacular stained glass window supported by two upper floors, which brings natural light to the whole space, accompanied by an ornament made up of Doric columns.
The Palau Martorell has 1,600 square meters to host exhibitions of great masters of art
While its main floor, which has access to the balcony, has a rectangular space where the ceiling frescoes shine and a coffered ceiling that imbues a majestic air.
1,600 m2 dedicated to art
The programming of this private space, which offers 1,600 square meters dedicated to art, seeks to become “a cultural engine”, cultural managers said Jesus Rodriguez and José Félix Bentz, from the direction of Palau.
“We want to bring important players to Barcelona samples of great masters such as Chagall, Alphonse MuchaCalder, Basquiat or Tamara de Lempickaamong others,” they said.
Sister, the first
The one chosen to open the season was Joachim Sorolla with exposure hunting impressionsedited by Blanca Pons-Sorollagreat-granddaughter of the Valencian artist and expert in her work, e Maria Lopez of the Sorolla Museum.
Sorolla’s exhibition consists of 193 small-format oil paintings that the artist has called ‘spots’ or ‘notes’
The exhibition, which can be visited until March 5, is made up of 193 small format oil paintings on cardboard, cardboard or other materials belonging to the collection of that museum in Madrid.
These works are part of the 2,000 oil paintings that the Valencian painter had made on cardboard and tablets, which he called ‘notes’, ‘spots’ or ‘notes of colour’.
From notes to works of art
At first they were considered intimate works, unfinished products of the painter’s oeuvre, but soon his creative freedom was appreciated in them and they began to be exhibited and valued as samples of the artist’s most personal and original works, he points out in Martorell Palace.
Sorolla sometimes used them to practice compositions, but often as simple exercise. “He kept them in his studio, pinned up to cover entire walls, but soon began framing them, and in all of his exhibitions these small pictures had an abundant and prominent presence,” he adds.
These small works contain fragments of the most ingenious Sorolla, in an exhibition divided into periods Formation and consolidation (1880-1903), Artistic maturity (1904-1911) a Fullness (1912-1919).
