This year, Artur Ramon Art celebrates its centenary. In October 1926, Artur Ramon i Vendrell announced himself as an antiques dealer in the Sitges magazine L’Amic de les Arts. That advertisement marked the beginning of a journey that would give rise to a dynasty of antiques dealers, now in its fifth generation. A story that began in Reus in 1893, continued in Sitges in 1925, and finally settled in Barcelona in 1942: first on Carrer de la Palla and, since 2017, at Carrer Bailèn, 19.
To commemorate our centenary, we present The Enduring Legacy of a Vision, an exhibition bringing together around thirty works of museum quality, all available for purchase, spanning eight centuries of art history, from the Master of Cabestany to Miquel Barceló. The exhibition explores the disciplines we have cultivated and that define us: painting, drawing, sculpture, ceramics and decorative arts.
Each work has its own story, and together they help tell ours.
The exhibition is accompanied by a book of the same title, devoted to the history of the family and its contribution to the antiques trade and collecting in Catalonia. More than a retrospective, The Enduring Legacy of a Vision is a celebration of one hundred years of expertise, passion and commitment to art, as well as a tribute to the art of the antiques dealer and a reflection on the gallery’s future.
Antiques dealers are an abstraction: what defines us are the works we present and the way we display them. At the heart of this profession lies a particular skill: knowing how to look and how to restore identity to objects that have gone unnoticed. This exhibition brings together the work carried out with dedication over one hundred years and five generations. These are works of museum quality that could feature among our selections at the world’s leading art fairs and which, at the same time, we hope will complete their journey in the finest possible settings: in the homes of our collectors or in the galleries of the world’s great museums. Ultimately, it is the works themselves that tell our story and ensure that this vision endures.
Among the exhibition’s highlights are three marble heads by the Master of Cabestany, originating from the now-lost western portal of Sant Pere de Rodes, and a previously unpublished painting by Goya, El milagro de la aparición de la Eucaristía a san Pascual Bailón, previously attributed to Francisco Bayeu.
The selection also includes works by Zurbarán, Ribera, Ramon Casas, Picasso, Santiago Rusiñol, Nonell and Anglada-Camarasa, alongside sculptures by Mariano Fortuny Madrazo, Manolo Hugué, Pablo Gargallo and Julio González.
The exhibition brings together works from the former collection of Lluís Plandiura, including a medieval sculpture from the workshop of Sant Joan de les Abadesses and Ribera’s Saint Peter in Tears, alongside exceptional examples of the decorative arts, such as a seventeenth-century Cuenca carpet and ceramics from Manises. The journey through eight centuries of art history culminates in a 2022 terracotta by Miquel Barceló.