HORTA DE SANT JOAN, 

The perfect place for an encounter with Picasso.

by Elias Gastón

The world over many museums exhibit works by Picasso. In New York, Chicago, Tokyo, Paris, Munich, Barcelona and other cities spread across all continents we can find his extraordinary paintings. It is easy to find Picasso, the painter, in these museums and Halls of Art Fame, but “Picasso - the person” not only in his creative dimension, but also in his sentimental one, both in perfect communion, where could we find them? Obviously we would search for them in the places where he lived, were he found his inspiration and where he developed professionally as well as personally. And more so in a special place with which he would have fully identified himself, that special place of which all of us dream during many moments of our lives, our long lost paradise. So, where to search for a plentiful encounter with Picasso? Malaga, the city that gave him light? Maybe Barcelona, where he was brought up as a child and adolescent? Others would think of Paris, where he matured as an artist. The best answer one will find is by asking Picasso himself. In correspondence with his friend Apollinaire we find the answer: “The purest sensations I experienced were in a great forest area in Spain, at age 16 I retreated to paint there.”[i]. He refers to his time in the wildlife preserve of Els Ports de Horta, where he spent the month of August 1898 with his soul mate Manuel Pallarés. But more so, in case anyone would be left with a doubt, Picasso often repeated the phrase: “Everything I know, I have learned in Horta.” He did not mention Paris, Barcelona or any of the places where he lived great parts of his life. He refers to this small village in Southern Catalonia where, in two phases, he spent one year of his life and which he kept in his most profound memories until the very last days of his life. At a very old age, in the year 1969, in Notre-Dame-deVie, Picasso received a delegation from Horta. During an emotional conversation, at a special moment, recalls Joaquim Ferrás (founding president of the Centre Picasso) and at the time part of the delegation, Picasso said with a nostalgic look on his face: “I really liked Horta a lot. Sometimes I think I should have stayed there for life, but my friends would argue. – what would you ever do there? – I don’t know, I don’t know, maybe I would be better off than today.”

What was it that Picasso experienced during his stays at Horta, in order for such profound ties to be created? Towards the end of June of 1898 an apprentice painter called Pablo Ruiz Picasso arrived at Horta de Sant Joan. He was in the company of his best friend, Manuel Pallarès, originally from Horta and a fellow classmate - two youngsters who had met at the School for Fine Arts in Barcelona and who, during 78 years would remain great friends, only broken apart by Picasso’s death.

For nine months, both friends lived together at the Pallarès family home. During this time Picasso paints and is happy at the side of his companion. They share friends, work and the adventure of living in a cave for one month surrounded by the wild nature of Les Ports; it is here that Picasso experienced the “purest sensations”. Josep Palau i Fabre, the prestigious biographer and scholar of the painter’s work, affirms that it was in Horta, far away from the tutorship of his father and the academic world, in communion  with nature and together with his friend, Picasso discovers the genius hidden in his interior which is starting to show itself to the world. This is why his return to Barcelona is postponed for so long, he needs time to “digest” these new sensations. When in February of 1899 the young Pablo returns to Barcelona, he is no longer the apprentice but instead a young man full of energy and power, fully aware of what he is and what he will be, ready to initiate one of the most extraordinary adventures in the world of art. Horta marks a before and after of Picasso’s life.

Ten years later he would come back to Horta de Ebro (this is how Picasso referred to Horta de Sant Joan)[ii] a young painter, renowned in the vanguard art circles of Paris, who two years earlier had revolutionized the art world with his painting “Las señoritas de la calle Avinyó” initiating one of the most important artistic movements of the XX century, cubism, which, as Gertrud Stein affirms, finds it fulfillment in Horta.  He didn’t come back to Horta by coincidence, he knew what he would find: friends and merry memories together with a perfect landscape for his new artistic style. This is why the cubist works created during the summer of 1909 are inseparable from the people and the surroundings where they were conceived. Josep Palau i Fabre in his magnificent work: “Picasso. Cubismo. 1907-1917”[iii] affirms:

“We must hold still for a moment to contemplate the production of Horta, underlining the progressively platonic character, these houses and these landscapes do not describe the reality of this town, but they sublimate it. The walls and the roofs are of air, they are made for us to walk through them, weightlessly, as if we were in long lost Paradise, we corrobate our affirmation that Horta was for Picasso, during his entire life, his long lost Paradise.”  

It was his way to render homage to the people and the place he carried in his heart. Never again would Picasso come back to Horta, but never did the strong ties he had established break up; mainly due to the contribution of his friend Manuel Pallarès and his frequent visits to his friend’s home in order to spend several weeks together every summer. Days of long conversations would often start with the words: “Remember that day in Horta....”

This is why we dare to assert that Horta is the ideal place for an encounter with Picasso. The Centre Picasso intends to keep his presence alive by showing facsimile reproductions of all the works created here in our village. At the same time this is our thankful homage to the one person who has put our small village in a privileged spot on the map of the universal art world. It is our intention to explain to whomever visits us that this is where he was happy and this is where he established strong esthetic and sentimental links with our people and our landscapes, links which remained unchangeable all through his lifetime. We want the scholars, the curious, those who admire art, to find here the genius and the human being.

Horta de Sant Joan really is a fortunate little town, as it was loved by one of the great masters of art. I would say two-times fortunate, as the spirit of this great master has enticed artists and people of culture all the way to Horta, some curiously following his steps, others trying to understand cubism, which is like saying to understand the essence of modern art, and many have come to get to know the grounds where Picasso felt so happy. We, who form the Centre Picasso are in the lucky position of receiving famous artists and scholars who are directed towards us by Picasso himself and who immediately convert into our friends and our masters.

Among them I want to cite Dr. Leonard Folgarait, Chair of Fine Arts at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, who after his extraordinary publications on the Mexican muralists and by his study of the great artist Diego Rivera arrived at Picasso’s work, specially interested in cubism and more so in geometric cubism, characteristic for the production phase in Horta. Naturally this brought him here to live in situ the landscape that inspired the most important artistic movement of the last century. At times we had the honor to accompany him showing him the picassian places and spots of our town and its surroundings.

Another friend whom Picasso led to us is Dr. Enrique Mallen of Texas A&M University, one of the great Picasso specialists in the USA, as his paramount work on the world wide web demonstrates. The ON-LINE PICASSO PROJECT is today an indispensable tool for anyone wanting to study Picasso and his work, an electronic  catalogue numbering more then 7000 perfectly documented works by the artist. Diverse published essays and innumerable appearances at conferences the world over show us the profile of one of the most important Picasso specialists of our times. Thanks to the collaboration of both we have been able to place works created in Horta, of which we did not know the owners.

We are sure that Matt Lamb, an important and renowned artist and also a great fighter for peace and tolerance , the latest friend whom Picasso has brought to us, will encounter him here in this small Catalan village and will also fall in love with our country and its people.

When visiting Horta, our friend Dominicus Rohde proposed this exhibition. I must confess, I was unaware of the work of Matt Lamb. To discover it has been a beautiful surprise, as much in the human as in the artistic aspect. I profoundly admire the “Umbrella Project” as I think it is imperative that the art world be committed to peace and tolerance, factors which seem to be scarce in today’s world. The symbolism of forms and colours sometimes have a superior power to the spoken word, as they are transmitted by the heart. As a teacher, being permanently in contact with children and adolescents, I thank Matt Lamb for his work in schools.

Often artists live their lives in their own world, far away from reality, and thus their work looses humanity, finding itself too often in the coolness of mere esthetics for the esthetics sake. Whenever an artist is able to “descend” to the universe of the children, a place of inexhaustible fountains of inspiration and energy, as is the case with Lamb, his work will become everybody’s heritage. Maybe the spontaneity of Lamb’s work is fueled by his permanent contact with ingenuity and generosity, hard to find with adults. The solidarity with those who suffer, with victims of intolerance, suggests a very high degree of empathy within Matt Lamb, a value which is not too very frequent in inter-human relations, too often too fragile. This is also how Picasso understood it and proved it with his gestures of solidarity towards friends fallen into disgrace or persecuted by injustice. Picasso achieved the highest possible recognition in society and the arts, nevertheless his best friend was a discrete painter, very distant from the select circle who surrounded and admired the famous artist; it was with him that he maintained a friendship which lasts an unusual length of time. It is good to be able to remember this aspect of Picasso’s feelings, at a time when it seems to have become fashionable to speak badly of him as a person.

I will not analyze the work of Lamb, this I leave to the art experts, for instance those who have written other essays in this catalogue with many more arguments than those I could ever have, leaving me with my ability to express the feelings his work provoked in me. As I said before, the first time I saw his work, I felt surprise and I was immediately trapped by the chromatic bloom of his paintings. It is easy to establish an emotional relationship with the images so very much dominated by spontaneity. One can feel the artist’s need to express himself. This is a body of work that does not leave one indifferent, it moves one from the first instant onwards, creating a plentiful atmosphere of symbolisms, which obliges one to not only view the composition, but to read it.

After this first impact, trying to read the work more rationally, it becomes apparent that the soul of contemporaneous art of the last decades can be found in the work of Lamb, as if he had closely investigated art history of the XX century and later, through a very personal vision, retransmitted it to the outside world. It seemed I felt the breath of Chagall, Dubuffet and the mask-like face of the Picasso of the 20th century as well as the tragic expression of the last picassian self portraits.

I must say that I was specially impressed by Matt Lamb’s religious art, of great symbolism like all of his work. I found in it the mysticism of the Romanesque altarpieces, often present in the North of Catalonia (one of the major and most loved treasures of our country), but with power and an enormous passion, going much further beyond the simple chromatic representation of biblical scenes.

Welcome Mr. Lamb, it is an honour for us to receive you in this special picassian place. We know that you are not coming out of curiosity nor out of coincidence, you admire and love Picasso, a great part of your work reflects this. It was only a question of time. To all those like yourself who have desired an authentic encounter with Picasso, he himself leads them to Horta de San Juan.