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26 and 1998’ and underline that ‘the exhibition has served to bring together for the first time a large quantity of unpublished ar- tistic and photographic material from the period that, up until now, had been quite disparate’. Similarly, the President of the Artistic Circle, Josep Fèlix Bentz, recognised that ‘the Penya La Punyalada in its time, just as the artistic institution now, have been two ways of understanding art in a way that is progressive, innovative and interdisciplinary without there being an ideolo- gical background at the service of the city’. This most recent exhibition has been the one most closely- followed by the press. A following that has surprised even the commissioner himself, featuring on privileged spaces such as the back page of El Periódico (16th January 2016) A kind of ex- hibition that, according to Bentz, is a dive into the recent past, necessary to create the very history of the institution. Up un- til now they had only organised shows individually, dedicated to esteemed members or historic interest, at least two a year. Doing exhibitions that are more wide-ranging has the advantage of greater circulation and dissemination, as seen in the case of the Penya La Punyalada. And lastly, to one of the more significant ones that marked the high point of collaborations between the institution and Barce- lona City Hall: The Exhibition of Belgian Artists from 1921. At the time, it was very common to use the Artistic Circles net- work to create international shows, largely European in reach. We have news of an initial international woodcutting exhibition organised in Antwerp in 1921 (Abelló 2015: 148-150), as well as a second one the following year in 1922, both of them at the Antwerp Artistic Circle space, organised by the art critic Roger Avermaete. It’s strange because during the same year (1921), the Barcelona Artistic Circle organised an exhibition of Belgian Artists, com- missioned by the Belgian Government, where we can find Lluís Masriera on the committee of honour, who would go on to cu- rate the failed Mostra dei Pittori Futuristi in 1912. In this case, the Barcelona exhibition was more expensive and luxurious, as the institution was having a moment in the sun, and the Ant- werp one was more modest. It’s worth considering that Barce- lona City Hall donated 10,000 pesetas for the organisation of an event at the Circle, as well as 5,000 pesetas for acquisitions. They went on to acquire an enormous oil painting of a very well- composed port scene ( Vue sur l’Escaut, vent d’Est ) with late-Im- pressionist strokes by John Michaux, now seen at the entrance to the Circle, as well as two paper works by artists unrepresen- ted in Avermaete’s essay (Avermaete, 1928): an etching by Al- bert Baertosen, Dégel à Gant , which was the one acquired out of the ten presented, as well as a sanguine by Paul Artôt, Tête de Femme . There was a considerable level of splendour, similar to the prosperity of the Belle Époque (Marín: 79-80). In the case of the Antwerp exhibition, seeing as the prints could be sent by post they were able to avoid excessive transportation costs, which here were paid by the barceloneses, subsidised by the Belgians, so as to see works by Eugène Laermans compared with Brueghel the Elder, Fernand Khnopff compared with the Pre-Raphaelites in paintings; Count Jacques de Lalaing, Victor Rousseau in sculptures; but lastly Rodríguez Codolá (Rodríguez Codolá, 1921) was charmed by a small print by Van der Loo, and wrote so in his review in La Vanguardia (10th February 1921). In summary, all this demonstrates that this period of the post- war spirit, which coincides with the Belle Époque, was impreg- nated with a great vitality and desire to open borders, even to distance themselves from the tragedy of another war as te- rrifying as the experience of the Great War. However, despite everything, Europe was inevitably walking towards one that broke out in 1939 with the Second World War, with our own cruel Civil War as a preliminary set of rehearsals. And the Circle, as an relevant institution, would demonstrate it through indis- pensable artistic events. █ Homenatge a la penya La Punyalada / Homenaje a la peña La Punyalada / Homage to the cultural group La Punyalada. O ne of the members of the Executive Board recently (last December) presented a thesis at the Humanities Faculty at Pompeu Fabra Universi- ty, one with a title a touch long (just like the thesis itself):France or Italy? European avant-gardes in Catalona: Perception and Transferences (1900-1924). A critical edition of Lletres de l’estranger (Letters from Abroad) by Joan Salvat-Papasseit and sample projects.The unique thing about the thesis is that amongst many academic authorities, the only institution it is dedicated to is the Artistic Circle, and its president, Josep Fèlix Bentz, who also made this research possible and made the institution’s rich documentary archive, partially unpublished and its infras- tructure available for this. This doctoral thesis presents the perception and main transferrals of the first avant-gardes to Catalunya, and defends the primacy of Futurism. From an historical point of view and in strict chronology, the piece also displays how the Italian artistic and cultural movement brings together a small group in Barcelona created through Joan Salvat-Papasseit and his gatherings at the Laietana Galeries. Here is where the Circle is given its important role. Up until now, everything indicated that Cubismwas the trend that marked the birth of modernity in local arts and literature. The celebration of the Cubist Art Exhibition at the Laietana Galeries (1912) hid another unsuccessful attempt at a futurist art exhibition at the Barcelona Artistic Circle the same year: an exhibition that failed to take place thanks to the disagreement of the latter’s conservative Board, who came in later than the proposal. La Vanguardia’s cultural journalist Josep Playà, fascinated by the story of the missing futurist exhibition, published a brief synthesis of the presented work (29th November 2014) thanks to an interview with the thesis’s author on the documentary collection of Barcelona Artistic Circle, in which he displayed the unpublished letter from F.T. Marinetti to Lluís Masriera (8th August 1912), then-President of the Exhibitions Board of the Barcelona Artistic Circle. This was something that Joan Abelló – I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned this before – also spoke about in the first issue of our online magazine Cercle. This thesis was directed by one of the most prestigious Catalan intellectuals from the world of aesthetics and arts, professor Rafael Argullol (interviewed in the most recent issue of Llei d’Art) who, in his own words, mentions ‘the interdisciplinarity of the topic studied, between contemporary art and literature’ as well as ‘the use of unpublished material. A total of thirty documents from the leading lights of the European avant-garde’. So, what is all this wordery about: merely to make public the praiseworthy tasks of one of the members of our Board, who as received the highest mark from an international university examination board, Cum Laude with a European award. And also for it to be an example for the work to be done by the Barcelona Art Institute in research and investigation, and also to show that it need not be done far away. As we have seen, one has to start in our own archive and library. Congratulations, dear friend and Board colleague, Joan Abelló!