There was a time, we could say foundational, when cultural policy mattered a lot in Catalonia. Despite having little money, as always. It was a battlefield and a showcase. It generated passions and citizen controversies. It was necessary to build the country that Franco's regime had erased. It was time to resume the work of the Mancomunitat and the Republican Generalitat: libraries, museums, archives, theaters... Pujolism put its national stamp on that process.

Eduard Carbonell, professor of art history and former director of the National Art Museum of Catalonia (MNAC), died on Sunday at the age of 79, according to Vilaweb and sources at the MNAC confirmed to ARA. Carbonell was the Director General of Cultural Heritage for the Catalan government between 1988 and 1994 and was considered a leading figure among Catalan museologists. Also in the institutional arena, he participated in the creation of the 1990 Museums Law (17/1990), the Library System Law (1993), and the Cultural Heritage Law (1993). In 2020, Carbonell received the Cross of Sant Jordi. Regarding his work at the MNAC, he led the reopening of the museum, reuniting all the collections that had been dispersed during the Civil War, from Romanesque to the early avant-garde movements. "Both the president, on behalf of the board of trustees, and the entire museum are deeply saddened by the death of Eduard Carbonell," says MNAC director Pepe Serra.