BBVA's art collection looks to Catalonia

BarcelonaThe painter Dionís Baixeras (1862-1943) is best known as a painter of landscapes, seascapes and traditional scenes of fishermen. It is less common to come across some of his magnificent female portraits, such as the one that BBVA has at its headquarters in the Plaza Antoni Maura in Barcelona. Specifically, the woman in Baixeras' painting is his wife, Maria del Pilar Casanovas Fortuny, and the fact that she looks towards the viewer is a reflection of the "complicity" that existed between them, as stated by the head of BBVA Heritage, María Luisa Barrio, during a recent trip to Barcelona. During that trip she also announced that they are working on a large exhibition of works from their collection from the 17th to the 19th century that they want to take to Catalonia. "It will be a very powerful exhibition, with about ninety works, but for this type of exhibition a museum or room that meets the conditions of a museum is required," says Barrio. "Catalonia is costing us a lot, we want to take it here," says Barrio, sarcastically. "We want to have avenues for collaboration with Catalonia," he stressed. This joint work with Catalan institutions would not be limited to exhibitions, but would also include a policy of depositing works in different museums, which they are already working on.

In this exhibition there will be the portrait of Baixeras and Julia in Maricel, by Ramon Casas,another of the 175 works of art, including paintings and sculptures, on display in the building's common areas and meeting rooms and offices. In addition, during a visit to the first floor you can see a Landscape by Modesto Urgell, Bust of a woman, by Ricard Canals; The lagoon, by Segundo Matilla; and other works by Antoni Clavé, Montserrat Gudiol and Xavier Valls. In the field of sculpture, works by Josep Maria Subirachs and other artists such as Frederic Marés, Luisa Granero and Marcel Martí are on display. "BBVA has more than one work by many of these artists," says Barrio.

The BBVA collection is "a collection of collections" of some 9,000 works, as Barrio also says, the result of the gathering of the funds of BBVA itself, founded in 1857 in Bilbao, and those of the banking entities that it has absorbed over the years. In the 19th century, banks used to have works of art to decorate their large central offices, a line that continued until the turning point, as Barrio explains, that occurred in the second half of the last century, when banks began to support contemporary artists.

But that's not all: in the basement of the headquarters there is a small art gallery with some 214 paintings and sculptures in the bank's old safe, which reporters cannot access. Only at first glance in this other space, surprises begin to emerge: a still life of sunflower seeds by Feliu Elias, a painting by Joan Brotat featuring one of his characteristic characters, a map with a muddy part by Pere Noguera, a painting by Ester Xargay, and an engraving by Joan Brossa. As the work team is small, they have not yet finished cataloging all these funds: "Our function is to inventory, catalog and research what we have. We give great importance to conservation, and we have four restoration workshops, all of them in Madrid," says Barrio. "The bank's collection covers seven centuries," adds the expert, "it begins in the 15th century and goes through to the 21st. Among the strong points is Flemish art from the 17th century and two works by Francisco de Goya."

A very unique building

The BBVA headquarters was the first headquarters of the Bank of Spain outside Madrid and, later, that of the Caja de Ahorros Provincial and that of Caja de Cataluña. BBVA arrived in 2016, when they absorbed Catalunya Caixa. As a witness to the history of the building, a relief by Josep Maria Subirachs made to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Caja de Ahorros Provincial is preserved on the staircase.

Architecturally, the BBVA headquarters is one of the most unique buildings in Barcelona and, as it has always been used as a bank, it is well preserved and no interventions have been carried out to alter its appearance. The building was built between 1929 and 1933, that is, in parallel with two other iconic buildings in the city in which the limits of Noucentisme and Rationalism are widely spread: the Myrurgia factory, byAntoni Puig Gairalt, and the Casal Sant Jordi, by Francesc Folguera. But the bank headquarters, which was built coinciding with the extension of Via Laietana, brings together a very curious combination of styles: the façade is historicist in character with classical columns, with four twentieth-century sculptures by the Valencian Vicenç Navarro, and the crowning of the façade – which maintains the 'ona' decoThe building is the work of architects José Yarnoz, the official architect of the Bank of Spain, and Luis Menéndez Pidal. Both were from Madrid, something that can be seen in one of the details of the bank: the interior design, in which the lamps in the entrance stand out, is inspired by the Viennese Secession, something common in Madrid at that time, but not in Barcelona. In order to be able to fully enjoy it, it would be a good initiative to make the building open to visitors during open days or during the 48H Open House Barcelona architecture festival.