The Foundation receives a donation of three glass plates from the Girona Artists Exhibition of 1908

Saturday, May 13, 2023

The architect Joan Tarrús, a member of the Foundation's board of trustees and one of the leading specialists in the work of Rafael Masó, has donated three glass photographic plates to the Foundation's archive with the only known images of the Girona Artists Exhibition of 1908.

The three glass plates contain images taken with the gelatin bromide technique, the photographic process that was invented and perfected in the 1970s and allowed photography to become popular. In this case, they are three photographs —probably commissioned— by the photographer Josep Thomas i Bigas (Barcelona, ​​​​1852 - Bern, Switzerland, 1910), who in 1880 had founded Fototípia Thomas, one of the main photography labs at that time in Catalonia. Two of these photographs were used to illustrate the article “Manifestació d'art de Girona”, published in the magazine Ilustració Catalana on December 13, 1908, about the exhibition organized by Masó at the end of 1908.

The Exhibition of Girona Artists took place at the Foment gallery in Girona, from November 1 to mid-December 1908, and presented architectural works by Rafael Masó, paintings by Joan B. Coromina and sculptures by Ricard Guinó, among which is a bust of Masó currently missing.

As Tarrús and Comadira explain in their monograph on the architect, “as for Masó, the exhibition had a double meaning: it shows his work as a work of art and demonstrates its possibilities for future commissions”. Masó, who had finished his architecture studies only two years ago, presented projects from the School of Architecture, drawings and sketches of decorative objects and graphic arts, and photographs of his first works: the Gerió Hall, the dining room of the farmhouse El Soler, Can Quintana de Torroella, Masó Puig Pharmacy and Casa Vinyes (under construction), as well as different textile and furniture creations.

In the image, a page from the magazine Ilustració Catalana with two of the photographs published in 1908 (Biblioteca de Catalunya).