One of the tasks of a young artist is to visit art galleries to find those who will represent them and sell their work. In 1968, while in Tarragona, I was groping in the dark, like all young artists, and someone told me about a gallery in Vilanova that was thriving. It was the Catafau gallery. Without a second thought, I took the train and ment there. The gallery was not very large. I was received by a rather short, stout gentleman with a mustache: It was Ramón Catafau. He was delighted with the works I brought him, which remained at the gallery. He was a lively and inquisitive character. He introduced me to his wife, a remarkable Valencian woman, Rosario. They had a daughter named Gessamí. The name amused me because back then, it was not at all common to give a child a name not found in the hagiography, according to tradition.
We held several exhibitions at the Vilanova gallery, and Ramon was selling some of my works, small formats, drawings, which are currently in the hands of the collectors who acquired them. One day, he told me he was opening a gallery in Sitges and wanted to hold an exhibition of my work. The new gallery was named Catafau2, and it was above the Pizzeria del Cap de la Vila, where “Janio‘s” is currently located. At the opening of my exhibition, I met a couple, she French and he American, Antoinette and Milo, who offered me to stay in one of their apartments during the winter,. This is how I arrived in the beautiful seaside town, and I stayed there. Among my recent acquaintances, I must also mention Santi Pérez, who had recently opened the Pizzeria, and his wife Marta Camps.
Ramon wanted me to create a collection of erotic drawings for him, and he gave me a (clandestine) book by the Marquis de Sade, and also several sessions of black and white pornographic films, which frankly I did not like at all. But well, from that came a good collection of erotic drawings in which he was one of the characters. Afterwards, despite everyone being against it, including him, I went to exhibit in Barcelona, and it was a success. This distanced us a bit, but after a short time, he proposed that I hold an exhibition at the Drugstore on Passeig de Gràcia. In those years, it must be said that it was the hub for all Barcelona’s night owls, among other reasons, because it never closed all night. Afterwards, he opened a gallery in Barcelona, “Art-Nou Signe”. The Vilanova one he had already closed, and the Sitges one lasted until the end of summer. At Art-Nou Signe, I exhibited a collection of works on Chopin’s “Nocturnes”. After my first exhibition at the Ateneu Barcelonès, I prepared another in homage to Federico García Lorca. The Diputació de Barcelona acquired the painting collection, which for a long time was displayed in the premises of the Institut del Teatre. With the money I received, I rented the studio that I had for several years in the attic of Carrer d’en Bosch in Sitges. Ramon often visited, enjoying himself immensely rummaging through folders and buying from me in bulk: drawings, small sketches, and some canvases, many of them unfinished, even unsigned, which became part of his already considerable collection, to which were also added works by other artists, erotic books, and trinkets bought at flea markets with the promise of being potential works of art.
When I moved to Barcelona, Ramon helped me acquire household appliances, as he then ran a corporate gift company and had access to various offers from which I could benefit. Ramon was a romantic of bygone eras, and at times I even thought that he didn’t truly live in his own time, but that his escapism transformed him into a Modernist character, decadent, yes, but alwaysalive.
He separated from Rosario and remarried Elvira Pané, with whom he had a son, Jaume. When I lived in Madrid, every time I went to Barcelona, I would visit them. They then had a bookstore near their home, and they managed it together, quite charmingly, by the way. I will never forget the warehouse of that bookstore, which was much, much larger than the public could ever imagine. There I organized all the press when I arrived from Tangier. It looked like a house of horrors. It was full of things: piles of cardboard, boxes, and who knows what else, so much so that it was almost impossible to move without stumbling. I could never understand how Ramon could make sense of it all, but it was his chaos. In the loft above the bookstore, he kept all the work he had been buying from me; there were piles of drawings on the tables. Suddenly, my entire past came to visit me, and I was overwhelmed; he had practically not wanted to sell almost anything of all that he had acquired from me.
He and Elvira also ran the gastronomic society “Bon Profit ”. A Ramon greatly enjoyed eating and cooking, eating and cooking, and vice versa. Grand meals were held at “Bon Profit ”. J I celebrated the opening dinner of my exhibition at the Biblioteca de Catalunya there, and a press lunch when we were preparing the “Star of Freedom” award for the “Lyon’s”-Club of Barcelona. Ramon was happy in that environment and never stopped; he seemed driven by a gust of wind that others could only perceive through him.
Afterwards, he opened a restaurant in Granyena de Segarra and invited me to go there, I don’t know how many times, but I couldn’t go. He had the restaurant full of my work, and his wish was for me to go and stay there for a season, but artists are never as free as others might think, and I couldn’t go. This is where Ramon stumbled. One way or another, he had always managed to succeed with the ventures he organized, but this time, things did not go well, and he gradually entered a spiral that led him towards a dangerous depression. The last time we saw each other was at the opening of my exhibition at the “Mar” Gallery in Barcelona. He had dressed for the occasion, wearing a black suit and a cane with a silver handle. Elvira and Jaume, who accompanied him, had helped him dress, almost pushing him. He was fantastic, moving from one work to another, driven by that gust of wind that distinguished him from the other guests. He was imitating himself. I know it cost him a great effort, far beyond his capabilities. This is the image I want to remember, this and that of a day when we had a photo session withmasks at the billiard table of “Bon Profit”.
Drawing by Josep Maria Rosselló.
