The 20th of September of 2016 will commemorate the 50th anniversary that a group of teachers resigned from Elisava. Part of that group of teachers would then go on to found EINA but it’s origins go further back to 1953 when a group of young artists inspired by the Bauhaus had the idea of creating an art school. This idea was born from one of many conversations at the Cercle Artístic in Plaza de Catalunya,..
The 20th of September of 2016 will commemorate the 50th anniversary that a group of teachers resigned from Elisava. Part of that group of teachers would then go on to found EINA but it’s origins go further back to 1953 when a group of young artists inspired by the Bauhaus had the idea of creating an art school. This idea was born from one of many conversations at the Cercle Artístic in Plaza de Catalunya, where a group of 200 artists began questioning “the problems living art had versus official art”. These meetings gave rise to a group that was empowered to work on creating a school, exhibitions and a museum that would be the alternative to the existing institutions. The results of this work group gave way to the foundation of the Association for Visual Artists of Cataluña in 1959 and Alexander Cirici Pellicer was made president. The FAD art school was also created in 1959.
Just one year later the lack of funding forced the school to close. In 1961 Elisava was founded under the umbrella of the CICF (Centre of Catholic Influence), which was directed by Albert Ràfols Casamada until he resigned.
A few years after the foundation of Elisava, the ideological discrepancies with the leadership of the CICF gave rise to mounting tensions between the management of CICF and a group of teachers at the school. The decision to eliminate the cinema classes taught by Romá Gubern against the opinion of the school’s management caused a permanent rift; and a large number of teachers and students to leave the school on the 20th of September of 1966.
Bibliography Ràfols Casamada, Albert. “Notes per a una història d’EINA”. En: Villena, Josep Maria (coor.). EINA, Escola de Disseny i Art: 1967-1987, vint anys d'avantguarda. Barcelona: Generalitat de Catalunya, Departament de Cultura, 1987, p. 11-41.
This post is the first of a series that will be published during this course to honour the 50th Anniversary of EINA Foundation.
