It was our first commission for a mural, in l 949. Because of the conditions of the walls
we decided to use a tempera technique; a mixture of rabbit's glue diluted with water
and lots of sanding in between. A very academic approach technically and
esoterically. We were at the time finishing our studies at the School of Fine Arts of the
University of Barcelona. The sculpture was made by Carulla Serra, a fourth member of
the group that left us soon after this collaboration.
The church was new and standing in the middle of a plaza. No trees, fountains, flower
beds or benches. A very simple and economic housing project for the working
community. The rector and promoter of the development was Mossen Francis
Camprobi, a priest student with us, and a very good friend.
We made the mural during the summer vacations and had a fantastic time working
together, discussing projects for the future and talking about art, politics, and other
topics.
It was the beginning of many years of activity in the field of murals, glass windows,
tapestries, mosaics and sculptures, as a group, but much more, individually. For
myself it was the beginning of many frustrations and problems concerning payments,
lack of time to do the work properly and constant doubts about what I was doing. At
the end I see that it didn't matter that much, considering that very little has been
preserved of the large quantity of art work that I produced from 1950 to 1980 .
In 2003, fifty five years after making the mural, I went to visit San Francisco de Horta
with the idea of making colour photographs. The priest was very pleased to meet me
and turned on all the lights on the altar. I was horrified to realise that all the painting
had been REPAINTED ON TOP to make them look BETTER. . The person that had done
the improvement had covered up our signature and date (1949 ) and signed his own
name and date (1998 ). All the colours are now completely flat, pastel and plastic
looking and outlined by a regular black line. It was not a great art work to begin with
but now it is dead.
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