Galeries Dalmau
Galeries Dalmau was an art gallery in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain, from 1906 to 1930. The gallery was founded and managed by the Symbolist painter and restorer. The aim was to promote, import and export avant-garde artistic talent. Dalmau is credited for having launched avant-garde art in Spain.
In 1912, Galeries Dalmau presented the first declared group exhibition of Cubism worldwide, with a controversial showing by Jean Metzinger, Albert Gleizes, Juan Gris, Marie Laurencin and Marcel Duchamp. The gallery featured pioneering exhibitions which included Fauvism, Orphism, De Stijl, and abstract art with Henri Matisse, Francis Picabia, and Pablo Picasso, in both collective and solo exhibitions. Dalmau published the Dadaist review 391 created by Picabia, and gave support to Troços by.
Dalmau was the first gallery in Spain to exhibit works by Juan Gris, the first to host solo exhibitions of works by Albert Gleizes, Francis Picabia, Joan Miró, Salvador Dalí and Angel Planells. It was also the first gallery to exhibit Vibrationism.
The gallery presented native pre-avant-garde artists, tendencies and manifestations new to the Catalan art scene, while also exporting Catalan art abroad, through exhibition-exchange projects, such as promoting the first exhibition by Joan Miró in Paris. Aware of the difficulty and marginality of the innovative art sectors, their cultural diffusion, and promotion criterion beyond any stylistic formula, Dalmau made these experiences the center of the gallery's programming. Dalmau is credited for having introduced avant-garde art to the Iberian Peninsula. Due to Dalmau's activities and exhibitions at the gallery, Barcelona became an important international center for innovative and experimental ideas and methods.
Background
Josep Dalmau
Born in Manresa, 1867, Josep Dalmau early on devoted himself to painting. In 1884, he moved to Barcelona where he discovered the Modernisme painter Joan Brull. Dalmau's painting were included in several salon exhibitions in Catalonia. In 1899 he was given his first and only solo exhibition, at Els Quatre Gats, a popular meeting place for artists throughout the modernist period. He continued exhibiting his works throughout his lifetime.At the age of thirty, he emigrated to Paris where he lived for six years, and studied painting conservation in Bruges and Gant, Belgium.
In 1906, after having finished his studies in restoration, Dalmau returned to Barcelona. He worked as a technical restorer for Museu de Barcelona. In 1914 he restored the complex work of Marià Fortuny, The Battle of Tetuan, 1862–1864. In 1915 he restored the altarpieces for the Board of Museums, known as Junta de Museus de Catalunya.
Dalmau opened an antiques gallery in 1906, Carrer del Pi, 10, becoming his first showroom, lasting from 1906 to 1911. The establishment basically dealt with antique objects, and later extended with a section of modern art. The first documented exhibition of modern art was in 1908, with the exhibition by Josep Mompou i Dencausse and some Japanese prints. The following year Dalmau hosted a joint exhibition of Joan Colom i Agustí, and Isidre Nonell.
Dalmau is largely credited for having introduced avant-garde art to Barcelona, and more generally, to Spain. His exhibitions, while promoting international artists, connected Catalan artists with the world of art outside of Spain.
Les Galeries Dalmau
Mid-1911 announced the expansion of the gallery. It was made possible by the revenue obtained in the market of antiques, especially through the import and export from France. It was also made possible from the proceeds of an exhibition of modern and old master portraits and drawings, organized by the City Council of Barcelona the previous year, in which Dalmau participated as an antique dealer with some valuable works by El Greco, Feliu Elias and two works by Francisco Goya, Portrait of Manuel Godoy, valued at 15,000 pesetas and Retrato de niño, 8,000 pesetas.The new establishment located in the Gothic Quarter at Carrer de Portaferrissa, 18, was baptized with the name "Galeries Dalmau" with the goal of combining exhibitions of old masters, modern art, and new art. Dalmau was poised to import foreign avant-garde art into the city of Barcelona, widening the city's cultural horizons.
The exhibition space of the gallery was located in the inner courtyard of a house, with a glass ceiling, typical of photography studio or industrial warehouse. It had a threaded mechanism that regulated the light coming in through the skylight. The space was divided by wooden partitions that did not reach the ceiling, and divided into two or three interconnected spaces, and one office. Access to the gallery passed through a long corridor adorned with anonymous unrestored old master landscapes and still lifes.
For the coming years, this became the platform featuring pioneering exhibitions of Fauvism, Orphism, De Stijl, and abstract art with Francis Picabia, Kees van Dongen, Joaquín Torres-García, Henri Matisse, Juliette Roche, Georges Braque, André Derain, Auguste Herbin, Fernand Léger, André Lhote, Gino Severini, Louis Valtat, Félix Vallotton, Hans Arp, María Blanchard and others in both collective and solo exhibitions.
Art historian Fèlix Fanés writes of the gallery:
To overcome the difficulties of the home market, Dalmau introduced contemporary Catalan art to foreign markets. This strategy, together with the arrival of numerous avant-garde artists in Barcelona during the First World War, served to consolidate the modern image of the Galeries Dalmau. The dealer paved the way for many young people in the tough world of advanced art, having a decisive influence, for example, on the early career of Joan Miró.
Selected exhibitions
1912: Picasso, Torres-García
In 1912 two exhibitions took place consecutively: Joaquín Torres-García, a painter of the Noucentista period; and Pablo Picasso, drawings from his Blue Period.1912: Exposició d'Art Cubista
From 20 April to 10 May 1912, Josep Dalmau exhibited, for the first time in Spain, in his new space located at Carrer de Portaferrissa, 18, a repertoire of Cubist artworks. This was the first worldwide group exhibition solely dedicated to Cubism. Some of the paintings had been shown at the 1911 Salon d'Automne in Paris. The news of this salon had already spread across Europe, and numerous article had been written about the new art. In Catalonia, Eugenio d'Ors wrote of the salon two months before the Dalmau show, 1 February 1912, "Pel cubisme a l'estructuralisme" published in "Pàgines Artístiques de La Veu de Catalunya", within which Ors depicted Cubism as a provisional stage, a consciousness or rational apprenticeship to build "structuralism". This article generated controversy, reflection and discussion between Joan Sacs, Joaquim Folch i Torres, and Joaquín Torres-García.In Paris, the Cubist works at the 1911 Salon d'Automne resulted in a public scandal that brought Cubism to the attention of the general public for the second time. The first was the organized group showing by Cubists in Salle 41 of the 1911 Salon des Indépendants. Cubist paintings had already been exhibited at the 1910 Salon d'Automne, but not under a group banner or name. The term "Cubisme" was enunciated for the first time for the occasion of the first exhibition to include Cubism outside France: at the Brussels Indépendants, June 1911. And now, the second exhibition beyond the French border was about to take place; the first devoted entirely to Cubism.
This was the backdrop upon which the Barcelona exhibition of Cubist art was set. Josep Dalmau had travelled to Paris to see the 1911 Salon d'Automne. He also visited a Cubist exhibition at Galerie d'Art Ancien et d'Art Contemporain, 3 rue Tronchet, where he met several Cubists, including Metzinger. The Dalmau exhibition comprised 83 works by 26 artists, including the Salon Cubists of Salle 41. He later attended the Indépendants 1912 Salon des Indépendants.
Mercè Vidal, author of L'Exposició d'Art Cubista de les Galeries Dalmau 1912 writes that Dalmau's initiative was not at random, nor the result of chance. 'The presentation of the Cubists in Barcelona came preceded by the interest of the Catalan artists and critics for that movement, from the moment they had first heard news.'
The opening of the Exposició d'Art Cubista at Les Galeries Dalmau began at 6pm on 20 April 1912. Entrance was strictly by personal invitation. Jacques Nayral's association with Gleizes led him to write the Preface for the Cubist exhibition, which was fully translated and reproduced in the newspaper La Veu de Catalunya. Previously, Jacques Nayral, joined forces with Alexandre Mercereau, Gleizes, Metzinger, and Le Fauconnier in planning to publish a review dedicated to the plastic arts. As editor-in-chief of publications, he went on to launch as series under the umbrella name Tous les arts, which published the first two seminal books on Cubism: Du "Cubisme" by Metzinger and Gleizes, and Les Peintres Cubistes, Méditations Esthétiques by Guillaume Apollinaire. In his Dalmau catalogue Preface, Nayral writes:
the artist must no longer cling to servile imitations, that artistic joy is not produced by the observance of an exact reproduction of appearance, but that it is born of the interaction of our sensibility and our intelligence, that the deeper the artist leads us into the unknown, the more talent he has. A multiple enigma, which does not reveal itself in its integrity and in a single stroke, but gradually and step by step—just as we read a book page by page.
Nayral then cites Metzinger's 1910 concept that their attempt is to realize a "total image", giving "a plastic consciousness to our instinct", and leading to a more profound truth—a "truth that only the intelligence grasps."
It is lyrical poetry... that one would have to express those profound feelings. No, not even that: in exchange for a supreme and marvelous selfish joy, it would be better not to try to analyze that divine sensation of mystery, that communion with the great unknown, which the contemplation of pure beauty elicits in the depths of our souls.
Extensive media coverage before, during and after the exhibition launched the Galeries Dalmau as a force in the development and propagation of modernism in Europe.
Cubists artists consisted of Jean Metzinger, Albert Gleizes, Marcel Duchamp, Juan Gris, Marie Laurencin, August Agero, with works by Henri Le Fauconnier and Fernand Léger listed in the supplement of the catalogue.
Jean Metzinger was considered the most representative of the Cubists. He exhibited a Study for "Le Goûter", which was printed on an advertising poster for the Cubist show at Dalmau, and two paintings, Nature morte and Deux Nus . Albert Gleizes exhibited Paysage , Le Chemin, Paysage à Meudon, Paysage avec personnage, Study for the portrait of Jacques Nayral, a drawing entitled El año, and three more untitled works. Marcel Duchamp showed La sonate and Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2 was exhibited for the first time. Juan Gris was represented by Nu, four untitled oils, and five drawings. Marie Laurencin showed two watercolors, two oils, two drawings and six etchings. August Agero, presented a Statue of man, Statue of woman, Bust of man, Jeune fille à la rose, a series of dishes, including one titled Adam and Eva and five drawings. Le Fauconnier exhibited Portrait d'un Poète and two landscapes of Brittany. Fernand Léger had three drawings in the show.
While press coverage was extensive, it was not always positive. Articles were published in the newspapers Esquella de La Torratxa and El Noticiero Universal attacking the Cubists with a series of caricatures laced with text, showing people shaped like cones standing in front of the works. Another depicted Adam and Eve in crude cubic form. Others still interpreted the paintings as cubic scribbles, or an artist at his easel with a cube-like animal head; all with derogatory captions. Others mocked the works, referring to them as "hieroglyphs". Among artists reactions were mixed, sparking a debate among Noucentists. Eugenio d'Ors saw Duchamps Nude Descending a Staircase as a "sad case, a case of unconsciousness and disorientation". In another article he referred to Duchamps Nude as "monstrous", because the artist renounced form and a sensual appearance of reality, contradicting the efforts of other Cubists. The following year Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2 was exhibited at the Armory Show where it became the subject of endless scandal.
Art historian Jaime Brihuega writes of the Dalmau Cubist show: "No doubt that the exhibition produced a strong commotion in the public, who welcomed it with a lot of suspicion. Cubism subsequently became one of the most influential art movements of the 20th century; impacting developments in Futurism, Suprematism, Dada, Constructivism, De Stijl and Art Deco. while Constructivism was influenced by Picasso's technique of constructing sculpture from separate elements.
'''Selected works exhibited or reproduced in the press'''