Two rare volumes of a Spanish modernist journal, Pèl & Ploma, are on display at the Meadows Museum until August 8. After this date, the works will return to Hamon’s unique collections housed in the library’s Limited Access. Published in Barcelona, the art and literary journal dates from 1899 – 1903. The poems, stories, and essays are written in Catalan with illustrations by the artist Ramón Casas, and much of the prose by Miguel Utrillo. Casas also contributed drawings for the covers and advertisements. Utrillo and Casas developed the concept and execution of this journal along with two other journals, Quatre Gats and Forma, both of which had shorter runs than Pèl & Ploma.
According to Eliseu Trenc, essay contributor to the Cleveland Museum of Art’s 2006 exhibition catalogue, Barcelona and Modernity: Picasso, Gaudí, Miró, Dalí, in which these volumes from Hamon were on display, Pèl & Ploma and Quatre Gats were inflected by the Parisian style. The journals “represent the French realist and synthetic school of the art of Toulouse-Lautrec and Steinlen.” 1 A few of the other artists represented in the journal were Santiago Rusiñol, Joaquin Mir, Joaquin Torres-Garcia, and others. 2
1 65.
2 66.
Blog post: Beverly Mitchell, Assistant Director, Hamon Arts Library