This exhibition unveils the archive of artist Hermen Anglada Camarasa, donated by his family. The premeditated way in which he created his archive reveals to us an anti-bohemian personality in bohemian times, and someone who controlled and planned his artistic career. The collection is made up of personal correspondence, notebooks, press albums and photographs taken by Anglada Camarasa, revealing his creative process. The discourse of the exhibition shows us the archive in relation to the artist’s works; it is an exhibition of a hybrid nature that invites the viewer to walk through an archive, outside the archive itself. It encourages us to get to know the artist through the records that he himself created. The collection, recently inventoried by the Museu Nacional, demonstrates the importance of Anglada Camarasa, the Catalan artist with the greatest international dimension between the eras of Marià Fortuny and Joan Miró.

Documentary collection 

Each of the following display cabinets corresponds to the classification of the Anglada Camarasa archive. It is a collection made up of notebooks and personal documents, press releases and, above all, photographs taken by the artist himself. The documents displayed here are just a selection of the archive received by the Museu Nacional, allowing visitors to see its richness and diversity.

The notebooks

This set of six handwritten notebooks combines professional and personal content, and includes everything from lists of works to contact addresses. The level of detail in the content reveals the extent to which he had control over his network of relationships and his artistic output.

The press release

A sense of Anglada Camarasa’s professionalism became evident when, in 1900, he commissioned a press agency to keep track of all the reviews of his national, but also international, exhibitions. The reviews, cut and pasted, were gathered into appropriately indexed albums.

Personal documents

In this space, several documents of a more personal nature are exhibited, such as certificates, invitations and business cards, but also others of a more professional nature related to his commercial activity, working as his own art dealer.

The photograph

A significant number of Anglada Camarasa’s works are inspired by photographs, most taken by the artist himself. He worked from a series of sets grouped by subject and, on occasion, made enlargements or frames of those photographs that interested him most, as done by professional photographers. Several hundred images are preserved in his personal archive, giving evidence of the extent to which photography played an important role in his artistic creation.

Classification

• Paris night

During his first stay in Paris, Anglada developed a highly personal style, which came from his vision of the Belle Époque, in its most frivolous and free-flowing state. The compositions are framed within a singular post-impressionism, often in nocturnal scenes, where a curvilinear arabesque is combined with an often almost material expression.

• Landscape

Among Anglada Camarasa’s various types of landscapes, those which stand out are the ones created in Mallorca and, more specifically, around Port de Pollença, which are both mountain and coastal, with a uniquely luminous usage of the sea and the cloudscape. He also immortalised some of the landscape of the seabed, using extreme chromaticism, which the artist observed through an instrument called an aquascope.

• Figure

Anglada’s interpretation of the figure integrates one of the core themes of his artistic creation: the female portrait. He developed this subject from very diverse typologies, from gypsy women to those in high society, and always using a very personal language. In this series, he also built a very unique bestiary, which featured animals such as cockerels and horses, and which he worked on almost obsessively.

• Flowers and fruits

Particularly after his stays in Mallorca, Anglada became interested in flowers, plants and gardening in general. The vases of flowers share a chromatic exuberance with his still life paintings. This was another important theme of Anglada, and sometimes they were positioned beneath pergolas; structures that captivated the artist due to their peculiar light filtering effect.

• Notes and studies

Anglada was a very meticulous artist in his creative process, and abundant preparatory studies of many of his definitive works are known. However, due to his working method, it is often difficult to distinguish whether a small-format study is actually a finished work or not. This ambiguity occurs especially in his oil paintings. Regarding his sketches, a large number of preparatory drawings are known, and often focus on specific details of his works.

Quadern blau

The control he had over his work led him to create a notebook in which he inventoried the works to be included in an anthological exhibition, while establishing a series of categories based on themes and artistic genres. This notebook has a certain referential value, to the extent that the artist made this his personal choice, and always with a great level of detail.