Col·lecció Jordi Costa del Taller de Picasso de Barcelona brings together 5,000 artworks (paintings, drawings and sculptures) and thousands of historical documents, including postcards, posters, serigraphs, artist’s notebooks, sketches, manuscripts and epistolary relationship between Jordi Costa and his artists. They represent a unique vision of Barcelona.

Josep Tarradellas, head of the Catalan government in exile since 1954, was able to return to Catalonia in 1977 as president of the Generalitat. After the time of the Dictatorship, the Spanish Government allowed his return to Barcelona. Tarradellas, when he returned to Catalonia, one of the first places he visited was Taller de Picasso art center, where he embraced Jordi Costa.

Taller de Picasso is part of the social, cultural and political history of Barcelona, Catalonia and Spain. At the end of 1971, Jordi Costa’s gallery suffered one of the biggest attacks on a cultural center during the last years of the Franco dictatorship.

In 1975, the Cooperativa de Cinema Alternatiu filmed the movie ‘A book is a weapon’. Jordi Costa appears giving details of the climate of violence that they suffered during the “lead years”. Macba projected this production in 2005 within the project ‘The brigades of light. The artistic and political avant-garde in spanish cinema (1967-1981).

The letter of
Pau Casals

Following a second attack on the Taller de Picasso, the gallery organized the ‘I Rencontre International of Hommage à Picasso’ in the French town of Vallauris, between September 23 and November 6, 1972. Artists from all over the world participated, like Salvador Dalí, Joan Miró and Antoni Tàpies. The music Pau Casals, aware of the attacks, wrote a letter of rejection, which began saying “Peace to men of good will” and continued as follows:

“Of course, I have been very upset and condemn the expression of violence and destruction by a disturbing group that has attempted against the artworks of Picasso. It is disheartening to see that there are these aggressive beings against the creations of the spirit. But with their hatred, they only hurt themselves! We can only repudiate them and treat them with compassion and pity. Now more than ever we have to reaffirm in the powers of spirit and wonder that is the human being with unlimited capabilities to create and do good things, and it is necessary that each of us contribute to this climate of understanding and peaceful coexistence. I hope that the tribute you prepare for Picasso will be a success and, of course, I will join“.

The Picasso Museum in Barcelona, 40 years later, organized -on December 14, 2012 and on March 3 2013- an exhibition commemorating that tribute organized in 1972 in the south of France by Taller de Picasso gallery.

Social life

Jordi Costa was a figure with an extensive artistic training. He kept for 25 years an art center.

Jordi Costa is very close to Barcelona, he actively participates in social clubs, organizes social gatherings and he is a very active part of Barcelona’s life (every Thursday he cooked a ‘paella’ in the gallery’s ‘patio’).

Links with Barça

The founder of Taller de Picasso is grandson of Vicenç Martínez, one of the best strikers of the history of Barça, with a total of 200 goals.

Jordi Costa honored the club in 1974 -on the 75th anniversary of FC Barcelona- with an exhibition which was echoed by his audacity.

Pablo Picasso

Taller de Picasso appears in the ‘Miscellanea Barcinonensia’ and in the ‘Notebooks of Archeology and History of the city of Barcelona’. Jordi Costa inherited from his grandfather the building where, according to a plaque inaugurated by the mayor of Barcelona, Pablo Picasso had his first workshop in the catalan capital.

Jordi Costa, over the years, turned it into an art center with Picassian soul and spirit. The logo of the gallery is also Picassian. But, above all, the chroniclers stand out that Taller de Picasso was a thermometer of the evolution of Barcelona, Catalonia and post-Franco Spain.

Taller de Picasso is a center of artistic experimentation, where word and drawing often go hand in hand.All the artists of Taller de Picasso found their opportunity.

Jordi Costa maintains a very close relationship with the artist. That is why it has a lot of work dedicated by artists and the collection treasures thousands of manuscripts, drawings and notebooks with sketches, which includes the process of artistic creation in its pure state.

Women Artist Association

Taller de Picasso hosted multiple exhibitions of female artists. Jordi Costa helped to create the Women Artist Association Som 7, born as a result of the Som Set silkscreen folder (preserved in the collection).

This folder was an outstanding initiative in the journal of sessions of the Parliament of Catalonia.

Jordi Costa, more than an art dealer, turned the art gallery Taller de Picasso into a cultural center of international reference. So much so that many artists, from all over the world, exhibited here for the first time.

Artists from all continents have left their mark on the Picassian gallery, from Brazil to New Zealand, passing through Argentina, Chile, Cuba, France, Romania, Italy, Belgium, Honduras, Portugal, Mexico, India or Japan.

Between 1971 and 1996, Jordi Costa also developed a great publishing activity. Includes several collections, for example, ‘Ipsithilla’, ‘Tu, jo i el vent’ or ‘Poemes i Dibuixos’, with the 24 best contemporary catalan poets and writers (from Salvador Espriu to JV Foix, to Manuel de Pedrolo, Marià Manent, Miquel de Palol, Ovidi Montllor, Baltasar Porcel, Miquel Arimany and Victor Pallàs, among others) and 24 graphic artists.

The bibliophile books of Taller de Picasso, authentic jewels of contemporary Catalan literature, can be found nowadays in the most prestigious cultural institutions of the world, such as:

• National Library of Catalonia

• MNAC Library

• Library of Congress of the United States

• National Library of Spain

• The New York Public Library

• Chicago Art Institute - The Ryerson and Burnham Libraries

• Herzog August Library

• Lisbon Art Library - Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation

• University of Frankfurt - Goethe Universität

• University of Toronto

• University of Illinois