Off the beaten track in the historic town centre of Llagostera, about hour and a half's drive from my home in Roses, is this singular museum housing works of art that were much appreciated by select Parisian circles in the 1920's. This small treasure is tucked away in the house of artist Emili Vila (1880-1967), once one of the most sought-after poster designers and portrait artists in Paris.
On entering the museum you see at once how the building still reflects the splendour of times gone by. The small rooms containing the artist's works - about 300 on display and an equal number on storage - are organised by period and styles. The most representative collection of paintings is exhibited on the ground floor. The Paris of the golden age of poster advertising (1906-1936) is evoked by Vila's refined hands of fashionable and elegant women turn soap, tobacco, oil, shirts and watches into objects of desire.
Emili Vila's exceptional treatment of light and shade, colours and expressions also brought him to work for the great cinema studios of Pathe, Paramount and Fox. He painted actresses from the hey day of Hollywood, grand Dames of French society and politicians of the era, whose gazes seem to follow you as you stroll around the portrait gallery on the top floor of the museum.
But the most surprising room in the museum is one that displays small-format works by such exceptional artists as Modigliani, Toulouse-Lautrec, Corot Degas, Castelucho, Goya and Picasso, many of them were connected to Emili Vila. The painter and his friends apparently used to sit conversing around the table in the corner where one of them would amuse himself by drawing on the wooden surface. An oval-shaped face in the style of Modigliani can
still be seen on the tabletop.
Artistic
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