Museus i Liceu: una història compartida

The Museu Etnològic i de Cultures del Món presents, in the Parc de Montjuïc Venue’s reception area, its contribution to the celebration of the 175th Anniversary of the Gran Teatre del Liceu: Museus i Liceu: una història compartida.

From 15 March 2022 to 15 January 2023 a selection of works by the highly regarded painter and stage designer Josep Mestres Cabanes (1898-1990), who often worked for the Liceu during the 1940s and 1950s, will be on display. Mestres Cabanes was also commissioned during those years with decorating a number of the theatre’s rooms with pictorial decorations.

At the same time, Mestres Cabanes specialised in creating dioramas, and produced items for several museums, archives and international fairs. Among them, the works now on display in the Museu Etnològic i de Cultures del Món, made in the second quarter of the 20th century for the purposes of illustrating various scenes of pastoral life during that period.

As Mestres Cabanes himself put it, “these dioramas actually require much the same as stage designs, except that they’re permanently assembled”.

Besides, this commemorative exhibition also includes another significant work: a small piece of a helical spring, with a glass material inlay fused to it from the effect of the flames, saved from the rubble of the original building after the 1861 fire by Josep Oriol Mestres i Esplugues (1815-1895), the architect commissioned with the rebuilding of the edifice.

Museus i Liceu: una història compartida is the result of the collaboration between the Liceu and 119 cultural centres (museums, archives, libraries, art centres) distributed all around Catalonia, to display works associated with the Liceu within the framework of its 175th Anniversary, from the 5th century BC to the present. About 145 works from 77 participating centres will be on display in the provinces of Barcelona (77), Girona (25), Tarragona (10) and Lleida (7).

Exhibition texts in English: