Sala Esteva Collection

History of the creators

On 22 June 1900, Joan Esteva i Casal (1874-1957) —a decorator who had trained as a painter at Llotja School of Fine Arts— and Claudio Hoyos i Ayala (1875-1905) launched the company Hoyos, Esteva i Cia. dedicated to the decorative arts in all their forms, in particular furniture, decoration and artistic reproductions. In November of the same year, they opened an exhibition space for their pieces at no. 7 Carrer del Paradís, in one of the Cases dels Canonges. A year later, on 27 June 1901, the two partners opened up a new establishment at no. 4 Carrer del Cardenal Casañas. On 8 August 1905, Claudio Hoyos died suddenly, and in 1906, the establishment was renamed Casa Figueras, Esteva y Sucesores de Hoyos, and continued its business at no. 6 Carrer de Santa Anna, where they also held art exhibitions. Between 1912 and early 1936, Casa Esteva was a private space with a regular exhibition programme, similar to that of other galleries.

In 1936, they moved again, this time to no. 21 Carrer de Casp, where they opened the Sala Esteva art gallery with the intention of focusing on more avant-garde pieces. The "Picasso Exhibition", organised by ADLAN, took place in the Sala Esteva in Barcelona. ADLAN chose this gallery because it needed a suitable space to exhibit Picasso's work, and Sala Esteva, besides being keen to host, seemed to meet all their requirements, both economically and logistically.

The material in the Sala Esteva Collection originates from a variety of sources, but was collected by the Sala Esteva for the Picasso exhibition of 1936. Claudio Hoyos Catasús, grandson of one of the owners, had kept this material at home and in 2009, offered it to the Picasso Museum.

The photographs of Picasso's work (thirty-six in total, including printed photographs and monochrome glass negatives) came mostly from Cahiers d'Art magazine. When they arrived at the Museum they were in no predetermined order, but contained three different types of numbering that could correspond to different purposes. Many of the printed photographs bore handwritten annotations on the back regarding the title, technique, date and owner of the work featured in the photograph. Most of them also featured an ink stamp on the back with the photographer's name. The seven photographs showing two perspectives of the Sala Esteva with the hung works (two printed photographs and five nitrate negatives) were not in any order, nor did they bear any annotations. The portrait of Picasso by Man Ray, now believed to be a press copy, also bore no information. This photograph was sent from Paris to the Sala Esteva by Luis Fernández (one of the exhibition organisers), who had received it from Man Ray himself. The eleven records arrived in their original boxes with the name of the recording company, the disc title and the person who recorded the speech written on the back. Finally, the invitations, press clippings and the two magazines arrived without any recognisable order or information.

Once at the Museum, the collection was organised and conserved following the standard procedures: registration of admission, identification of collection types (company collection), preventive conservation, archiving, documentation, description in accordance with the standards established according to the type of document (ISBD and NODAC) and digitisation.

In terms of conservation, they underwent a restoration and preventive conservation process undertaken by the specialist Pau Maynés, which involved studying, cleaning, restoring and conditioning the photographs to prevent any further deterioration. The eleven records (three of them shellac on metal and eight of them acetate on metal) were in a rather delicate state of conservation: they were covered in dust, the edges were chipped and cracking, and the grooved tracks were so damaged by mould and rust that it was impossible to read them using a needle. As such, in order to restore the records and guarantee their preservation, Museu de la Música director, Romà Escalas, selflessly offered his support and took over the delicate restoration and preventive conservation process, as well as the mechanical reading of the recordings and their subsequent digitisation. The rest of the paper documents were handled by the Picasso Museum's own Department of Restoration and Preventive Conservation. Anti-theft mechanisms were also installed to protect all the material.

The collection was digitised by the Image Processing and Multimedia Technology Centre (CITM-UPC), in line with the protocols for reproducing the Picasso Museum's documentary material.

Finally, in order to completely archive the collection and ensure it could be accessed, it was deemed necessary to commission a legal report on how the documents in the collection may be used to aid the Picasso Museum's publicity efforts. The report was drawn up by Josep Matas from the firm Legalment.

Scope and content

The collection brings together a significant part of the documents collected by the Sala Esteva following the "Picasso Exhibition" of January 1936. This exhibition proved to be fundamental for understanding Picasso's relationship with Barcelona and, ultimately, with Spain.

This collection, acquired by the Picasso Museum between 2009 and 2010, is incomplete and comprises thirty-six photographs showing twenty-two of Picasso's pieces exhibited that day, as well as seven photographs showing two different views of the Sala Esteva and the exhibited works. The collection also includes eleven records, produced in Paris in 1935, featuring speeches by Jaume Sabartés, Julio González, Luis Fernández and Salvador Dalí at the opening of the Picasso exhibition; an invitation to the first lecture at Sala Esteva given by Paul Éluard; two issues of D'Ací i d'Allà magazine (winter 1934 and summer 1936) and a couple of newspaper clippings with reviews of the exhibition. Among the collection is a portrait of Picasso taken by the photographer Man Ray in 1932, and used as an image for the exhibition; we now believe that this could be a press copy.

The photographs depicting Picasso's works are particularly important because they show exactly which pieces were on display in the exhibition.   

Accession details

The Sala Esteva Collection was acquired by the Museum through two purchases made on 4 April 2009 and 1 January 2010. They were bought from Claudio Hoyos Catasús, the grandson of one of the owners of the Sala Esteva art gallery in Barcelona.