“CARPE DIEM”, To Miquel Serrano
In the early seventies, in that Sitges which is now a memory, I met the painter
Miquel Serrano. Always, and in any circumstance, polite, charming, elegant, ironic
and a smoker, a heavy smoker, a “bon vivant” and a drinker, preferably “whisky”. A regular at the
terrace of Café Roy in Sitges, Café de la Òpera in Barcelona, and Café de Flore in Paris.
Companion of the Blai brothers, and of Manolo Muntanyola. He did not particularly like talking about art, and
even less about his own. He had been a student of Francesc Labarta. In the 1930s, he had painted a portrait from
life of the poet Federico Garcia Lorca, for the presentation of one of his lectures in
Barcelona, the Grenadian historian Antonina Rodrigo mentions it in one of her books dedicated
to the poet. Serrano rarely spoke of what he had done; he was a friend of Jean Cocteau, and in his apartment
on Rambla Catalunya, he had some beautiful drawings of fauns that Cocteau had given him, and he also
provided him with contacts in Paris, who commissioned originals for fabric printing,
which allowed him to live with dignity. An unrepeatable generation.
I was very pleased to learn that a significant exhibition is finally being dedicated to him in Sitges, at
Espai Miramar. An exhibition curated by Beli Artigas, which brings together the best of his
work, almost a retrospective. He probably would have been rather afraid of it, but deep down,
he would have liked it. Yes, he would have liked it very much, because, despite everything, he was tender enough to
accept it as a generous display of friendship.
I saw some of his works from the 1940s or perhaps 1950s, at the home of Pepa
Gumà, in Sitges, who had unique works in her collection, which now belongs to her
daughters, Silvia and Marta Camps. Many “Serranos” were seen in Sitges, but not like those.
When I organized my exhibition “Neomitologia de Sitges i la Blanca Subur” at the Hotel
Romàntic, I painted the two large-format works at “Ca la Femenina” and the rest at the studio
that Serrano had in the apartment above Café Roy, and which the master kindly lent me.
The circumstances that led the artist to “carpe diem” are unknown to me, but in a certain
way, I believe it all had something of a protest against the dogmatic clutches and the
laws of the market, which for some time had been gnawing at the fresh fields of art and life, from which
he fled like cats flee water. For a time, we had the same art dealer,
Cayetano Balagueró, who organized several exhibitions for him. Cayetano was from Castelló de
Farfanya, Lleida, like Bernat, his cousin, friend, model, and companion of Miquel Serrano.
With Miquel, anecdotes blossomed like flowers in spring. One of these is the one
we experienced together with Santi Pérez, founder of Pizzeria del Cap de la Vila, on
a round trip to Carcassonne, the French walled city rebuilt by Eugène
Viollet-le-Duc. A bastion of the Cathars. Not for a party, but to help Miquel collect the
belongings from his recently deceased sister’s apartment, of which he was the heir.
We were accompanied by a young man, Toni Sella, who not long ago recounted this adventure
in an article, titled “Tot és fals,” published in these very pages of L’Eco de Sitges.”
We still all tremble just thinking about it. Serrano was nervous, very nervous,
and in these circumstances, he could cause a tsunami of unfathomable consequences; he
forced us to eat a “Marseille casserole” for breakfast. While he smoked tirelessly
one cigarette after another, and after withdrawing everything from the bank vault, with the
documents he himself had forged in Barcelona, to avoid paying lawyers, (Santi
did not know until they were in the bank’s basement). He invited us to lunch. The fifty
three towers of Carcassonne spun around us, and the double ring of the walls, of
military grey stone, contributed to our terrors, and what if it all ended up in the Museum of Torture
of the Inquisition? Afterwards, loaded to the brim, the car like a moving pyramid, and with
pockets full of gold doubloons and jewels, which we had to distribute so that the bulge
was not too obvious. Like a troop of ancient pirates (Jack Sparrow style), we crossed the
border without any incident. Ugh! Unforgettable, Miquel Serrano.
Josep Maria Rosselló.
“CARPE DIEM”, To Miquel Serrano
In the early seventies, in that Sitges which is now a memory, I met the painter
Miquel Serrano. Always, and in any circumstance, polite, charming, elegant, ironic
and a smoker, a heavy smoker, a “bon vivant” and a drinker, preferably “whisky”. A regular at the
terrace of Café Roy in Sitges, Café de la Òpera in Barcelona, and Café de Flore in Paris.
Companion of the Blai brothers, and of Manolo Muntanyola. He did not particularly like talking about art, and
even less about his own. He had been a student of Francesc Labarta. In the 1930s, he had painted a portrait from
life of the poet Federico Garcia Lorca, for the presentation of one of his lectures in
Barcelona, the Grenadian historian Antonina Rodrigo mentions it in one of her books dedicated
to the poet. Serrano rarely spoke of what he had done; he was a friend of Jean Cocteau, and in his apartment
on Rambla Catalunya, he had some beautiful drawings of fauns that Cocteau had given him, and he also
provided him with contacts in Paris, who commissioned originals for fabric printing,
which allowed him to live with dignity. An unrepeatable generation.
I was very pleased to learn that a significant exhibition is finally being dedicated to him in Sitges, at
Espai Miramar. An exhibition curated by Beli Artigas, which brings together the best of his
work, almost a retrospective. He probably would have been rather afraid of it, but deep down,
he would have liked it. Yes, he would have liked it very much, because, despite everything, he was tender enough to
accept it as a generous display of friendship.
I saw some of his works from the 1940s or perhaps 1950s, at the home of Pepa
Gumà, in Sitges, who had unique works in her collection, which now belongs to her
daughters, Silvia and Marta Camps. Many “Serranos” were seen in Sitges, but not like those.
When I organized my exhibition “Neomitologia de Sitges i la Blanca Subur” at the Hotel
Romàntic, I painted the two large-format works at “Ca la Femenina” and the rest at the studio
that Serrano had in the apartment above Café Roy, and which the master kindly lent me.
The circumstances that led the artist to “carpe diem” are unknown to me, but in a certain
way, I believe it all had something of a protest against the dogmatic clutches and the
laws of the market, which for some time had been gnawing at the fresh fields of art and life, from which
he fled like cats flee water. For a time, we had the same art dealer,
Cayetano Balagueró, who organized several exhibitions for him. Cayetano was from Castelló de
Farfanya, Lleida, like Bernat, his cousin, friend, model, and companion of Miquel Serrano.
With Miquel, anecdotes blossomed like flowers in spring. One of these is the one
we experienced together with Santi Pérez, founder of Pizzeria del Cap de la Vila, on
a round trip to Carcassonne, the French walled city rebuilt by Eugène
Viollet-le-Duc. A bastion of the Cathars. Not for a party, but to help Miquel collect the
belongings from his recently deceased sister’s apartment, of which he was the heir.
We were accompanied by a young man, Toni Sella, who not long ago recounted this adventure
in an article, titled “Tot és fals,” published in these very pages of L’Eco de Sitges.”
We still all tremble just thinking about it. Serrano was nervous, very nervous,
and in these circumstances, he could cause a tsunami of unfathomable consequences; he
forced us to eat a “Marseille casserole” for breakfast. While he smoked tirelessly
one cigarette after another, and after withdrawing everything from the bank vault, with the
documents he himself had forged in Barcelona, to avoid paying lawyers, (Santi
did not know until they were in the bank’s basement). He invited us to lunch. The fifty
three towers of Carcassonne spun around us, and the double ring of the walls, of
military grey stone, contributed to our terrors, and what if it all ended up in the Museum of Torture
of the Inquisition? Afterwards, loaded to the brim, the car like a moving pyramid, and with
pockets full of gold doubloons and jewels, which we had to distribute so that the bulge
was not too obvious. Like a troop of ancient pirates (Jack Sparrow style), we crossed the
border without any incident. Ugh! Unforgettable, Miquel Serrano.
Josep Maria Rosselló.
“CARPE DIEM”, To Miquel Serrano
In the early seventies, in that Sitges which is now a memory, I met the painter
Miquel Serrano. Always, and in any circumstance, polite, charming, elegant, ironic
and a smoker, a heavy smoker, a “bon vivant” and a drinker, preferably “whisky”. A regular at the
terrace of Café Roy in Sitges, Café de la Òpera in Barcelona, and Café de Flore in Paris.
Companion of the Blai brothers, and of Manolo Muntanyola. He did not particularly like talking about art, and
even less about his own. He had been a student of Francesc Labarta. In the 1930s, he had painted a portrait from
life of the poet Federico Garcia Lorca, for the presentation of one of his lectures in
Barcelona, the Grenadian historian Antonina Rodrigo mentions it in one of her books dedicated
to the poet. Serrano rarely spoke of what he had done; he was a friend of Jean Cocteau, and in his apartment
on Rambla Catalunya, he had some beautiful drawings of fauns that Cocteau had given him, and he also
provided him with contacts in Paris, who commissioned originals for fabric printing,
which allowed him to live with dignity. An unrepeatable generation.
I was very pleased to learn that a significant exhibition is finally being dedicated to him in Sitges, at
Espai Miramar. An exhibition curated by Beli Artigas, which brings together the best of his
work, almost a retrospective. He probably would have been rather afraid of it, but deep down,
he would have liked it. Yes, he would have liked it very much, because, despite everything, he was tender enough to
accept it as a generous display of friendship.
I saw some of his works from the 1940s or perhaps 1950s, at the home of Pepa
Gumà, in Sitges, who had unique works in her collection, which now belongs to her
daughters, Silvia and Marta Camps. Many “Serranos” were seen in Sitges, but not like those.
When I organized my exhibition “Neomitologia de Sitges i la Blanca Subur” at the Hotel
Romàntic, I painted the two large-format works at “Ca la Femenina” and the rest at the studio
that Serrano had in the apartment above Café Roy, and which the master kindly lent me.
The circumstances that led the artist to “carpe diem” are unknown to me, but in a certain
way, I believe it all had something of a protest against the dogmatic clutches and the
laws of the market, which for some time had been gnawing at the fresh fields of art and life, from which
he fled like cats flee water. For a time, we had the same art dealer,
Cayetano Balagueró, who organized several exhibitions for him. Cayetano was from Castelló de
Farfanya, Lleida, like Bernat, his cousin, friend, model, and companion of Miquel Serrano.
With Miquel, anecdotes blossomed like flowers in spring. One of these is the one
we experienced together with Santi Pérez, founder of Pizzeria del Cap de la Vila, on
a round trip to Carcassonne, the French walled city rebuilt by Eugène
Viollet-le-Duc. A bastion of the Cathars. Not for a party, but to help Miquel collect the
belongings from his recently deceased sister’s apartment, of which he was the heir.
We were accompanied by a young man, Toni Sella, who not long ago recounted this adventure
in an article, titled “Tot és fals,” published in these very pages of L’Eco de Sitges.”
We still all tremble just thinking about it. Serrano was nervous, very nervous,
and in these circumstances, he could cause a tsunami of unfathomable consequences; he
forced us to eat a “Marseille casserole” for breakfast. While he smoked tirelessly
one cigarette after another, and after withdrawing everything from the bank vault, with the
documents he himself had forged in Barcelona, to avoid paying lawyers, (Santi
did not know until they were in the bank’s basement). He invited us to lunch. The fifty
three towers of Carcassonne spun around us, and the double ring of the walls, of
military grey stone, contributed to our terrors, and what if it all ended up in the Museum of Torture
of the Inquisition? Afterwards, loaded to the brim, the car like a moving pyramid, and with
pockets full of gold doubloons and jewels, which we had to distribute so that the bulge
was not too obvious. Like a troop of ancient pirates (Jack Sparrow style), we crossed the
border without any incident. Ugh! Unforgettable, Miquel Serrano.
Josep Maria Rosselló.
“CARPE DIEM”, To Miquel Serrano
In the early seventies, in that Sitges which is now a memory, I met the painter
Miquel Serrano. Always, and in any circumstance, polite, charming, elegant, ironic
and a smoker, a heavy smoker, a “bon vivant” and a drinker, preferably “whisky”. A regular at the
terrace of Café Roy in Sitges, Café de la Òpera in Barcelona, and Café de Flore in Paris.
Companion of the Blai brothers, and of Manolo Muntanyola. He did not particularly like talking about art, and
even less about his own. He had been a student of Francesc Labarta. In the 1930s, he had painted a portrait from
life of the poet Federico Garcia Lorca, for the presentation of one of his lectures in
Barcelona, the Grenadian historian Antonina Rodrigo mentions it in one of her books dedicated
to the poet. Serrano rarely spoke of what he had done; he was a friend of Jean Cocteau, and in his apartment
on Rambla Catalunya, he had some beautiful drawings of fauns that Cocteau had given him, and he also
provided him with contacts in Paris, who commissioned original designs for fabric printing,
which allowed him to live comfortably. A truly unique generation.
I was very pleased to learn that a significant exhibition is finally being dedicated to him in Sitges, at
Espai Miramar. An exhibition curated by Beli Artigas, which gathers the very best of his
work, almost a retrospective. He would probably have been rather intimidated by it, but deep down,
he would have liked it. Yes, he would have liked it very much, because, despite everything, he was gentle enough to
accept it as a generous gesture of friendship.
I saw some of his works from the 1940s or perhaps 1950s at the home of Pepa
Gumà in Sitges, who possessed unique pieces in her collection, which now belongs to her
daughters, Silvia and Marta Camps. Many “Serranos” were seen in Sitges, but none quite like those.
When I organized my exhibition “Neomythology of Sitges and the White Suburb” at the Hotel
Romàntic, I painted the two large-format works at “Ca la Femenina” and the rest at the studio
that Serrano maintained in the apartment above Café Roy, and which the master kindly lent me.
I am unaware of the circumstances that led the artist to embrace “carpe diem,” but in a certain
way, I believe it all contained an element of protest against the dogmatic clutches and
the laws of the market, which had long been eroding the fertile grounds of art and life, from which
he fled as cats flee water. For a time, we shared the same art dealer,
Cayetano Balagueró, who organized several exhibitions for him. Cayetano hailed from Castelló de
Farfanya, Lleida, much like Bernat, his cousin, friend, model, and companion to Miquel Serrano.
With Miquel, anecdotes blossomed like spring flowers. One such anecdote is the one
we experienced together with Santi Pérez, founder of the Pizzeria del Cap de la Vila, during
a round trip to Carcassonne, the walled French city rebuilt by Eugène
Viollet-le-Duc. A bastion of the Cathars. Not for revelry, but to help Miquel collect the
belongings from his sister’s apartment, as she had recently passed away and he was her heir.
We were accompanied by a young man, Toni Sella, who recently recounted this adventure
in an article titled “Everything is False,” published in these very pages of L’Eco de Sitges.
We all still tremble at the mere thought of it. Serrano was nervous, extremely nervous,
and in such circumstances, he could unleash a tsunami of far-reaching consequences. He
insisted we eat a “Marseille casserole” for breakfast. While he smoked tirelessly,
one cigarette after another, and after retrieving everything from the bank’s safe deposit box, using the
documents he himself had falsified in Barcelona to avoid paying lawyers (Santi
did not know until they were in the bank’s basement). He then invited us to lunch. The fifty-three
towers of Carcassonne seemed to spin around us, and the double ring of the walls, made of
military grey stone, contributed to our growing fears. What if it all ended up in the Inquisition’s Torture Museum?
Afterwards, loaded to the brim, the car resembling a mobile pyramid, and with
our pockets filled with gold doubloons and jewels, which we had to distribute so that the bulge
would not be too obvious. Like a troop of ancient pirates (picture Jack Sparrow), we crossed the
border without any incident. Phew! Unforgettable, Miquel Serrano.
Josep Maria Rosselló.
