Los Museos de Sitges recover the artistic legacy of the 1976 tribute to Federico García Lorca

The Sitges Museums are participating in the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the tribute to Federico García Lorca, held on October 25, 1976 at the Casino Prado Suburense, with a contribution dedicated to recovering the artistic and cultural memory of that event. The celebration will take place on Sunday, October 25, 2026, with a route through the spaces linked to the poet and a commemorative event at the Teatre Prado.

The contribution of the Sitges Museums will consist of an exhibition of roll-ups that recover and contextualize the graphic works that several artists created expressly for the 1976 tribute. The installation can be seen first at the Casino Prado Suburense and, later, will travel to other facilities in the town of Sitges, with the aim of bringing this episode of local cultural history closer to different audiences.

The initiative will allow the recovery of a set of creations that testify to the commitment of the art world to the figure of Lorca and to the demand for freedoms at a particularly significant moment in the democratic transition.

Art as an expression of memory and freedom

On October 25, 1976, just eleven months after the death of dictator Francisco Franco, Sitges hosted a tribute to Federico García Lorca on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of his assassination. The event, promoted by personalities from the cultural world such as Josep Maria Castellet, Francesc Sitjà, Manuel Jiménez de Parga and Josep Maria Loperena, brought together prominent representatives of the theater, literature and visual arts.

Among the participants were figures such as Núria Espert, Adolfo Marsillach, Enric Majó, Guillermina Motta, Mercè Comes and Rosa Maria Sardà, among others. The tribute became a cultural and civic manifestation of vindication of the memory of the poet, assassinated in 1936, and of the recovery of democratic freedoms.

One of the unique elements of the celebration was the projection of graphic works created especially for the occasion by artists such as Josep Guinovart, Albert Ràfols-Casamada, Maria Girona, Francesc Ferret Farreras (Bruno), Josep Roca-Sastre, Francesc Todó, Josep Maria Garcia Llort and Isabel Garriga Pinell, among others.

Fifty years later, the Sitges Museums are contributing to the recovery of these creations, which are part of the Sitges Town Art Collection, through informative roll-ups that will allow us to contemplate the images of the works again and learn about their historical and artistic context.

This proposal, designed to circulate through different spaces in Sitges, aims to expand the scope of the commemoration beyond the event of October 25 and contribute to keeping the memory of that tribute alive. The works evoke both Lorca's poetic universe and the commitment of the artists who claimed culture as a space of freedom and collective expression.

Sitges and the memory of Federico García Lorca

The participation of the Sitges Museums also allows us to highlight the poet's close relationship with the town and the role that Sitges played in the dissemination and recovery of his work.

Federico García Lorca visited Sitges during the summer of 1927, accompanied by Salvador Dalí and in contact with the environment of the magazine L'Amic de les Arts. That stay linked him to one of the most active nuclei of the Catalan artistic avant-garde.

Another outstanding episode in this relationship occurred on September 11 and 12, 1947, when the Casino Prado Suburense hosted the performance of Doña Rosita la soltera o el lenguaje de las flores, under the direction of Artur Carbonell. Considered one of the first stage recoveries of Lorca in the State after the Civil War, this performance constituted a significant cultural gesture in a context of censorship and restrictions imposed by Franco's regime.

The roll-ups produced by the Sitges Museums for this commemoration also recover this episode, with references to the poster of the 1947 performance and to a historical photograph preserved in the Sitges Municipal Historical Archive.

A commemoration at the Prado Theatre

The celebration on Sunday 25 October will begin at 11 am, at Pont d’en Domènec, in front of the Subur Hotel, with the Lorca in Sitges – Sitges in Lorca route, a walk through the spaces linked to the poet’s stays and his mark on Sitges’ cultural life.

At 1:30 pm, the Prado Theatre will host the central event of the 50th anniversary, with the participation of the theatre group La Tija, the poet and rhapsode Gloria Bosch, the dancer Maite Ferré, the singer and composer Mariona Martín, the poet Cèlia Sànchez-Mústich and other rhapsodes. The event will be presented by Montserrat Esquerda-Bosch.

The commemoration is promoted by the LGTBIQ+ Memory Group of Colors Sitges Link, together with the Casino Prado Suburense and the La Tija theatre group, with the collaboration of the Sitges City Council and the Sitges Museums. Both the route and the commemorative event will be free.

With this collaboration, the Sitges Museums reaffirm their commitment to the conservation, research and dissemination of artistic and documentary heritage. The itinerant nature of the roll-ups will also allow this historical story to reach other spaces in the town and expand the opportunities for discovering an episode that is part of the cultural and democratic memory of Sitges.

The commemoration of the fifty years of the tribute to Federico García Lorca is also an opportunity to claim the validity of his legacy and remember the role of Sitges as a space for meeting, artistic creation and defense of freedom of expression.