The Escola de la Llotja (, "Llotja School"; es, Escuela de la Lonja), officially the Escola d'Arts i Oficis de Barcelona (Barcelona Arts and Crafts School), is an art and design school located in

Barcelona Barcelona ( , , ) is a city on the coast of northeastern Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within ci ...

Catalonia Catalonia (; ca, Catalunya ; Aranese Occitan: ''Catalonha'' ; es, Cataluña ) is an autonomous community of Spain, designated as a ''nationality'' by its Statute of Autonomy. Most of the territory (except the Val d'Aran) lies on the north ...

Spain , image_flag = Bandera de España.svg , image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg , national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond") , national_anthem = (English: "Royal March") , i ...

. The school took its name from its initial location in the

Llotja de Mar The Llotja de Barcelona or Llotja de Mar ( Catalan for ''Llotja of Barcelona'' or ''Sea Llotja'') is a building located on Passeig d'Isabel II, in the Ciutat Vella district of Barcelona. It was formerly a meeting place for the city's merchants, ...

palace; it was moved in 1967 to its current location at 17 Ciutat de Balaguer Street. (It also has a satellite location at 40 Padre Manyanet Street in the San Andreu neighborhood.) The first director of the school was

Valencia Valencia ( va, València) is the capital of the Autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Valencian Community, Valencia and the Municipalities of Spain, third-most populated municipality in Spain, with 791,413 inhabitants. It is ...

n engraver Pedro Pascual Moles, who oriented the school towards

academic art Academic art, or academicism or academism, is a style of painting and sculpture produced under the influence of European academies of art. Specifically, academic art is the art and artists influenced by the standards of the French Académie d ...

advocated by painter

Anton Raphael Mengs Anton Raphael Mengs (22 March 1728 – 29 June 1779) was a German people, German painter, active in Dresden, Rome, and Madrid, who while painting in the Rococo period of the mid-18th century became one of the precursors to Neoclassicism, Neoclas ...

History

The school was founded by the Junta de Comerç de Barcelona in 1775 under the name ''Escola gratuïta de disseny'' as a training center for applied art. The school was first oriented around the printing of silk and cotton textiles, and later broadened its scope to include the

plastic arts Plastic arts are art forms which involve physical manipulation of a plastic medium by molding or modeling such as sculpture or ceramics. Less often the term may be used broadly for all the visual arts (such as painting, sculpture, film and pho ...

. The period between 1768 and 1787 was a great boom of textile-printing factories, and Barcelona led Europe in textile-printing activity. In 1817, the school added architectural studies to its program of studies. The school's classes were totally free. Furthermore, scholarships allowed many students to travel to Madrid and other European centers like Rome and Paris for studies, where they typically dedicated themselves to copying grand masters' works, which was a common method of study in that era. The school's focus evolved toward the fine arts and in 1778 its name was changed to ''Fine Arts School'' (''Escola de Nobles Arts''). In 1790, the school expanded with satellite locations in

Olot Olot () is the capital city of the ''comarca'' of Garrotxa, in the Province of Girona, Catalonia, Spain. The city is known for its natural landscape, including four volcanoes scattered around the city center. The municipality is part of the Zon ...

Palma de Mallorca Palma (; ; also known as ''Palma de Mallorca'', officially between 1983–88, 2006–08, and 2012–16) is the capital and largest city of the Autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of the Balearic Islands in Spain. It is situate ...

Tàrrega Tàrrega is a town and municipality located in the Urgell comarca, Province of Lleida, Catalonia. According to the 2020 census ( Statistical Institute of Catalonia), the town has a population of 17,445. The village has a Mediterranean climate wi ...

Girona Girona (officially and in Catalan language, Catalan , Spanish: ''Gerona'' ) is a city in northern Catalonia, Spain, at the confluence of the Ter River, Ter, Onyar, Galligants, and Güell rivers. The city had an official population of 103,369 in ...

Saragossa Zaragoza, also known in English as Saragossa,''Encyclopædia Britannica'"Zaragoza (conventional Saragossa)" is the capital city of the Zaragoza Province and of the autonomous community of Aragon, Spain. It lies by the Ebro river and its tributari ...

, and Haca. The school organized its first exhibition in 1786 of prize-winning student work; in the next year's exhibition, other non-student artworks were also displayed.Judit Subirachs i Burgaya, (1994), ''L'Escultura del segle XIX a Catalunya'' Publicacions de l'Abadia de Montserrat, In 1850, the school became dependent on the Acadèmia Provincial de Belles Arts, with the new name Provincial School of Fine Art (''Escola Provincial de Belles Arts''). Some renowned figures in the world of arts and design have passed through its classrooms, such as the painters

Pablo Picasso Pablo Ruiz Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist and Scenic design, theatre designer who spent most of his adult life in France. One of the most influential artists of the 20th ce ...

Armando Reverón Armando Reverón (May 10, 1889 – September 17, 1954) was a Venezuelan painter and sculptor, precursor of Arte Povera and considered one of the most important of the 20th century in Latin America. While his mental health deteriorated throughou ...

Isidre Nonell Isidre Nonell i Monturiol (; es, Isidro Nonell y Monturiol; 30 November 1872 – 21 February 1911) was a Spanish artist known for his expressive portrayal of socially marginalized individuals in late 19th-century Barcelona. Life Isidre Non ...

Joaquim Mir Joaquin Mir Trinxet or Joaquin Mir y Trinxet (Catalan: ''Joaquim Mir i Trinxet'') (Barcelona 6 January 1873 – 8 April 1940) was a Catalan artist known for his use of color in his paintings. He lived through a turbulent time in the history o ...

, Manuel Pallarés, Luis Fraile, Laurent Jiménez-Balaguer,

Josep Guinovart Josep Guinovart i Bertran (20 March 1927 in Barcelona – 12 December 2007 in Barcelona) was a Spaniards, Spanish painter most famous for his informalist or abstract expressionist work. In 1941, he began to work as a decorator. Three years la ...

Modest Cuixart Modest Cuixart i Tàpies (born 2 November 1925 in Barcelona – died 31 October 2007 in Palamós) was a Catalan painter. He is, along with poet Joan Brossa and painters Joan Ponç, his cousin Antoni Tàpies and Joan-Josep Tharrats, the founder ...

, Mariano Fortuny and Joan Hernández Pijuan; sculptors such as

Damià Campeny Damià Campeny i Estrany (12 April 1771, Mataró - 17 July 1855, Barcelona) was a Spaniards, Spanish sculptor in the Classicism, Classical style. Biography He was born to the shoemaker, Andreu Campeny, and his wife Casilda. His first studies wer ...

, Domènec Talarn, Agapit Vallmitjana i Abarca, Joan Rebull, Frederic Marès and

Jaume Plensa Jaume Plensa i Suñé (; born 23 August 1955) is a Spanish visual artist, sculptor, designer and engraver. He is a versatile artist who has also created opera sets, video projections and acoustic installations. He worked with renowned Catalan th ...

; architects such as Cèsar Martinell and Óscar Tusquets; illustrators such as

Lola Anglada Dolors Anglada i Sarriera (; 1893, in Barcelona – 1984, in Tiana, Province of Barcelona), commonly known as ''Lola Anglada'', was a Spanish writer, comics artist and illustrator. Biography Born to a Barcelona family with strong roots in Ti ...

, Apeles Mestres and Mercè Llimona; furniture designer such as Joan Busquets i Jané; industrial designers such as Gabriel Teixidó; graphic designers such as Josep Artigues; theorists such as Alexandre Cirici i Pellicer and Arnau Puig, and interior designers such as Miquel García i Riera, amongst others. Mexican painter Sylvia Ordóñez studied printmaking at the Escola de la Llotja in 1979. Pepita Pardell, Spanish animator, cartoonist, illustrator, and painter, was also a student.

References

External links

Official site (English)
{{authority control Universities in Catalonia Education in Barcelona Art schools in Spain