CERCLE 6

26 CONTEMPORANI - CONTEMPORÁNEO - CONTEMPORARY of directors in 1893, vice-president in 1897 and member of merit partner from 1915) might well be the figure most akin to the imaginary of the young Picasso. Although fifteen years older than the latter, Casas was one of the people that the malagueño artist took as a referent during his famous period training in Barcelona. w 20th century w During the 20th century, the only point of connection with the master was his appointment as a member of merit in 1918. The previous year, Picasso had a long stay in Barcelona, from June to November. This is what is being commemorated by the Picasso Museum with a temporary exhibition curated by its current director, Emmanuel Guigon. It speaks of a Picasso that is already well-known, successful that strolls through the city waiting for the Russian passport of who was, at first, his frien and who then went on to become his first "official" wife, Olga Khokhlova, a ballerina from the Ballets Russes. They had met and become engaged a few months prior in Rome, a city that now has a comprehensive exhibition opened last Sep- tember at the Scuderie del Quirinale, Picasso: Tra Cubismo e Classicismo: 1915-1925. There is also the fact that the building of the Catalonia Col- lege of Architects's building, built between 1959 and 1962 by the Catalan architect Joan Busquets Sindreu, whose sympathy towards Picasso led him to take the opportunity to ask the latter for some designs to decorate the façade with, following a system created by the Norwegian Carl Nesjar. Since 1962, therefore, we have some of Picasso's drawings on permanent exhibition and right opposite our own façade. w 21th century w In terms of this century, it is worth highlighting two exhibi- tions, curated by Francesco Gallo and held in China in 2015 and 2016 thanks to the Italian Metamorfosis association in the artistic circle has had a three-century existence (they are in fact one hundred and thirty-seven years, albeit distributed over three different centuries) and it reveals the fortunate and close relations between the institution and one of the most famous artists in the history of contemporary art, pablo picasso. w 19th century w Starting with the commentary by the prolific art historian Francesc Fontbona i de Vallescar, in the prologue of the book on the Cercle written by Maria Isabel Marín ( Cercle Artístic de Barcelona: An initial approach to 125 years of history, Bar- celona 2006), there is clear evidence of the master Pablo Picasso at the institution. It says verbatim: 'It is true that, in 1918, Pablo Picasso was proposed as a member of merit as an artist who, at that time, was very young and who many re- membered frequenting the place, hand in hand with a mature [Francesc] Gimeno'. It is a little-investigated topic, and one that could well awaken the interest of more than one person, related to the Cercle or not, but for the moment, we are satisfied with the certainty that a so-called Pablo Ruiz was already a member in the min- utes dated September 29th, 1899. In fact, as Fontbona right- ly says, the Cercle that the young Picasso would have known was neither Royal (a merit granted by Alfonso XIII in 1917) nor did it occupy the majestic current building, although it was close to the famous Quatre Gats. The Cercle of that time was an organizer of lavish dances at the Liceu and was frequented by a great number of bohemian artists, some of them addicted to different various and many others loyal to Modernisme, and this was the Cercle known to Pablo, who himself used to frequent the brothels of Barcelona that later inspired many of his paintings, some of them as im- portant to the history of contemporary art as Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (Paris, 1917). Ramon Casas (member of the board Picasso and the Cercle Exposició/Exposición/Exhibition Picasso a a Xina/Picasso en China/Picasso in China Foto/Photo Joan Abellò