New acquisitions for new stories. The National Collection, 2024

New Acquisitions for New Stories. The National Collection, 2024

Sitges Museums — Rocamora Room
From June 11, 2025 to January 25, 2026

The Sitges Museums present a small-scale exhibition of the works incorporated in 2024 into the National Art Collection of the Government of Catalonia and deposited in Sitges' museum facilities. This small exhibition aims to be a window open to the new stories that these pieces contribute to our heritage, enriching it and expanding its narratives. The works respond to a desire to review and update historical and artistic discourses, with a special interest in giving voice to diverse and contemporary perspectives. In this process, the Sitges Museums promote an ongoing dialogue around change and inclusion.

Laboratory of Perspectives and Identities

Sitges Museums works collaboratively with the local LGBTQ+ community—Colores Sitges Link—with Víctor Ramírez Tur's rapporteurship, and with the participation of external specialists in fields related to gender and identity. This network has given rise to the Laboratory of Perspectives and Identities, a space for reflection and experimentation aimed at rethinking its collections from a more inclusive, critical, and plural perspective. Research is key to redefining and redefining the collections held in Sitges Museums and a fundamental tool for reinterpreting, from new perspectives, the representation of traditionally underrepresented groups.

Sitges Museums are asking themselves: what do the collections we curate explain—and what do they hide? Which voices are present? Which narratives dominate? Which experiences have traditionally been excluded or silenced? This exercise is not only a critical review, but also an opportunity: to open spaces for new narratives, more diverse, more plural, and more representative of the society we are and want to be. Detecting absences means recognizing the gaps, making them visible, highlighting them, and, when possible, beginning to fill them. And not only with new acquisitions, but with new perspectives, new connections with the community, and new ways of relating heritage. This is a path we want to pursue with collaboration: with local groups, with specialists, with artists, with the public. Because the museum is not only a place to preserve objects, but also a space to foster questions. This small-format exhibition is a first approximation of the new paths we want to explore, bringing heritage into dialogue with the present and the community.

NEW ACQUISITIONS FOR NEW STORIES. THE NATIONAL COLLECTION 2024

A doorknob is used to knock on a door, for someone to open it and allow us access to a new space. Josep Puig i Cadafalch designed four for the doors of the Casa de les Pinchas in Barcelona, ​​but one was left over, which is precisely what, having been purchased by the National Collection of the Generalitat of Catalonia, has now been deposited in the Sitges Museums and added to their collection of wrought iron pieces. The architect met Santiago Rusiñol at the Quatre Gats and the Casa Martí, which were also his work, and was one of the guests at the Third Modernist Festival, on November 4, 1894, which marked the inauguration of the Cau Ferrat.

The new acquisitions of the National Collection of the Generalitat of Catalonia for the Sitges Museums also open up avenues for new narratives and vindications. An example of this is the postcard written and illustrated by Lluïsa Denís, writer, composer, painter, and... Rusiñol's wife. But as so often happens, the husband's fame overshadowed his wife's art. Sitges' museums have also been enriched with three sculptures by Ismael Smith, an artist who meets all the requirements to be present. In fact, his family was on the verge of buying Maricel in the early 1950s to turn it into a museum dedicated to his work. It wasn't to be, but now the museums, with these additions, now have six of his works.

Ismael Smith's LGBTQ+ identity opens another avenue for museums. The original comic book Historias de Sitges: Machos al sol (Stories of Sitges: Machos al sol) by Sebas Martín shows a very recognizable Sitges. Salvador, the protagonist of the story, spends a few days in the town in the summer of 1996. It is the starting point for a narrative that describes, with tenderness but also with a self-critical touch, the gay world before the legalization of same-sex marriage.

However, five of Jacint Bofarull's illustrations incorporated into the collection show how "special effects" were shot in 1930s cinema, entirely by hand. A true tribute to the magic of cinema, so deeply rooted in Sitges thanks to the International Fantastic Film Festival of Catalonia.

Montse Frisach

OBRAS QUE FORMAN PARTE DE LA COLECCIÓN NACIONAL 2024

Son un total de 17 obras que forman parte del Depósito del Fondo de Arte de la Generalidad de Cataluña de 2024 y que se ubicarán en el Museo de Maricel.

- Ring doorknob. 1903-1910. Wrought iron. Josep Puig i Cadafalch (Mataró, 1867 - Barcelona, ​​1956)

- Illustrated postcard. 1904. Oil painting on cardboard. Lluïsa Denís y Reverter (Barcelona, ​​1862-1942)

- 'Prayer'. Sketch for the Camps and Nonell family pantheon in the Lloret de Mar Cemetery. Barcelona, ​​1909. Burnished plaster. Ismael Smith y Marino (Barcelona, ​​1886 - New York, 1972)

- Fireplace design. 1906. Polychrome plaster. Ismael Smith y Marino (Barcelona, ​​1886 - New York, 1972)

- 'Eve and Adam'. Design for a light fitting. 1905-1906. Painted plaster. Ismael Smith y Marino (Barcelona, ​​1886 - New York, 1972)

- 6 plates from 'Stories of Sitges: Males in the Sun'. 2000. Drawing in India ink with pen on tracing paper; graphite pencil on Canson paper. Sebastià Martín Sánchez, 'Sebas Martín' (Barcelona, ​​1961)

- Untitled. Circa 1930. Drawing in graphite pencil and gouache on paper. Jacint Bofarull y Foraster (Barcelona, ​​1903-1977)

- Untitled. 1930. Drawing in graphite pencil, wax pencil, India ink, watercolor, and gouache on paper. Jacint Bofarull y Foraster (Barcelona, ​​1903-1977)

- Untitled. 1930. Drawing in graphite pencil, wax crayon, India ink, watercolor, and gouache on paper. Jacint Bofarull y Foraster (Barcelona, ​​1903-1977)

- Untitled. 1930. Drawing in graphite pencil, India ink, and gouache on paper; cover with rectangular window, with color proofs on the reverse. Jacint Bofarull y Foraster (Barcelona, ​​1903-1977)

- Untitled. Circa 1930. Drawing in graphite pencil, wax crayon, India ink, watercolor, and gouache on paper. Jacint Bofarull y Foraster (Barcelona, ​​1903-1977)

- Untitled. 1933. Drawing in graphite pencil, wax crayon, India ink, watercolor, and guaix on paper. Jacint Bofarull y Foraster (Barcelona, ​​1903–1977)