L’estendard de l’Orfeó Feliuà, the most unknown piece by Gaudí

The book Història d’un Gaudí ocult reconstructs the creative process of the Orfeó Feliuà banner — from the conception and design by the architect to the formal execution in the workshop of his regular collaborator, Claudi Hoyos —, deciphers the meaning of the Gaudí symbols and, with the collaboration of Francesc Garriga, manager of the Board of Trustees of the Can Xifreda Municipal Museum, follows the historical journey of the only one of the four banners designed by Gaudí that has survived to the present day.
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According to Professor Teresa-M. Sala, "this is an original, in-depth and rigorously studied work, which expands and reveals, as its title indicates, a hidden Gaudí, that is to say, what is not visible and has remained hidden". The photographs that accompany the explanations in the book allow readers to appreciate all the details of this object, which has a surprising corporeal dimension, with organic-based forms and made from a wide variety of materials.

The beauty and uniqueness of the Orfeó Feliuà banner, created at the beginning of the 20^th century as the insignia of one of the hearts of the town of Sant Feliu de Codines, make it a unique work of art. Although it was said by oral tradition that the piece was by Antoni Gaudí, the researchers have been able to prove its authorship using a report published in El Diario Catalán in 1902, which also states that the project was carried out by the workshop Hoyos, Esteva y Cía. of Barcelona, with the evidence marked on the back of the banner with a metal plate. In the book, the authors have reconstructed the creative process of the work, from its conception and design to its formal execution. They have studied the meaning of Gaudí's symbols and, with the collaboration of Francesc Garriga (author of a monograph on this banner published in 2002), have been able to reconstruct the historical itinerary of the only preserved banner of the four that Gaudí designed and which have not survived over time.

The UB Edition’s collection Quaderns d'Art i Natura, an initiative of the Consolidated Research Group on History of Art and Contemporary Design (GRACMON), was born to record images and texts that relate the field of the arts with nature. The books that make up the collection are a space open to creativity in which aspects of nature are brought together and evaluated through the eyes of artists, writers and thinkers. The latest titles in the collection are Del llibre que Lluís Domènech i Montaner no va escriure, by Lluís Domènech Girbau and Teresa-M. Sala, and Poètiques de la natura. Espais per a l'espiritualitat, coordinated by Teresa-M. Sala and Irene Gras Valero. Sala and Irene Gras Valero.

Teresa-M. Sala is a lecturer of History of Art at the University of Barcelona, director of GRACMON and, together with Francesco Ardolino, co-director of the magazine Compás de amalgama. She has curated several exhibitions, including "Barcelona 1900" (Van Gogh Museum, 2007) and "Blue, the colour of Modernism" (CaixaForum, 2019-2020). In 2017, in the third edition of the Mountain Book Publishing Prize, he received a runner-up prize for Visions dels Pirineus. Entre la Renaixença i el Modernisme (UB Editions).

Xavier Jové graduated in Business Studies at the University of Girona. An independent researcher of the Catalan’s Modernisme period, he has studied in depth the figures of Apel·les Mestres, Alexandre de Riquer and Antoni Gaudí, as well as the history of the workshop Hoyos Esteva y Cía. He has published several writings related to these subjects, in some cases in collaboration with Eliseu Trenc or Teresa-M. Sala, on which he has also presented papers at conferences.