Casa Casagemas
The eldest Casagemas-Coll sisters, Pepita and Merçè, introduced Carme Karr’s feminist views (according to Karr more feminine than feminist) to Sitges. They had each married Llopis Puig brothers.
Pepita (Barcelona, 1859 –1943) married Antònio (1851–1911), and Mercè (Barcelona, 1866-1947), Manuel (18??-1911). Both sisters were feminist activists who took advantage of their privileged position to further social causes. One of their most prominent projects was the introduction of a Consumer’s League and a Buyer’s League in Catalonia. These organizations focus was to ensure fair working conditions for women.
A third sister, Lluïsa (Barcelona, 1873-1942) was the first Spanish woman to compose an opera. She completed Schiava and Regina, an opera in three parts, at only eighteen. She was awarded a prize for her work at the Chicago Columbian Exposition, a feat that greatly boosted her career. In 1896 she married Enrique de Sorarrain Milans del Bosch. Throughout her life, besides composing melodies for voice and piano, she also put music to existing lyrics such as Rialla d’Abril (April laughter) by Apel·les Mestres.
The youngest of the Casagemas siblings, Carles (Barcelona, 1880 – Paris, 1901) was a poet and painter, Catalanist and anarchist, and, maybe what he is best known for, Picasso’s friend. Together, they shared artistic endeavors in Barcelona and, in the summer of 1900, visited Santiago Rusiñol at the Cau Ferrat before moving to Paris in September. On the 21st of January, 1900, the newspaper L’Eco de Sitges published “Amor Gris” (Sad Love) a text signed by Casagemas. It is highly probable that it had been written in Sitges since, from the same period, we find a letter written to Picasso and dated in the town.
Carles ended his life in the Café Hippodrome, on February 17, 1901. Picasso was deeply affected by his friend’s death, so much so that it gave start to the artist’s Blue Period.
Casa Casagemas
In carrer del Port de n'Alegre, 21, we find the ancestral home of the Casagemas-Coll family. The family's position (the father, Manuel Casagemas Llabrós, was secretary of the Compañía Transatlántica de Barcelona and came from a wealthy family of landowners) gave the four Casagemas siblings the possibility of a privileged education in the Arts.
The eldest Casagemas-Coll sisters, Pepita and Merçè, introduced Carme Karr's feminist views (according to Karr more feminine than feminist) to Sitges. They had each married a brother Llopis Puig, nephews to Bernardí Llopis Pujol (1814-1891), one of the main producers of malvasia in Sitges, descendant of can Falç and owner of Can Llopis, which currently houses the Romantic Museum.
Pepita (Barcelona, 1859 –1943) married Antònio (1851–1911), first boat lieutenant and frigate captain; and Mercè (Barcelona, 1866-1947), Manuel (18??-1911), an industrial engineer who worked as gas meter in Barcelona. Their marriages increased the Casagemas-Llopis hegemony and patrimony.
Both sisters were feminist activists who took advantage of their privileged position to further social causes. One of their most prominent projects was the introduction of a Consumer's League and a Buyer's League in Catalonia. These organizations focus was to oppose sweatshop labor and to ensure fair working conditions for women by promoting minimum wage laws, better sanitary conditions, shorter hours and the improvement of workplace infrastructures.
A third sister, Lluïsa (Barcelona, 1873-1942) was the first Spanish woman to compose an opera. She completed Schiava and Regina, an opera in three parts, at only eighteen. She was awarded a prize for her work at the Chicago Columbian Exposition, a feat that greatly boosted her career. In Catalonia, Schiava and Regina was scheduled to be performed in the 1893-1894 season at the Liceu. However, an anarchist attack interrupted the opera season on the 7th of November 1893 and her work was never performed in Barcelona. It finally premiered at the Royal Palace in Madrid. At the time, the Sitges' weekly paper echoed the event, and wondered if, at least in part, some of the opera had been composed in the very town.
In 1896, Lluïsa Casagemas married Enrique de Sorarrain Milans del Bosch. The couple moved to carrer Tacó, 5. Dramatic circumstances put her career in hiatus for several years, between 1898 and 1907: in this period both her father and younger brother died, and she lost four of her five children to the plague epidemic. Throughout her life, besides composing melodies for voice and piano, she also put music to existing lyrics such as Rialla d'Abril (April laughter) by Apel·les Mestres.
In the summers of 1894 and 1901 Lluïsa Casagemas was joined in Sitges by Mercè Vidal, another Modernist composer who made her debut in the 4th Modernist Festival, and, possibly, composer Isabel Güell López (1872-1956), whose family had a house in nearby Garraf.
The youngest of the Casagemas siblings, Carles (Barcelona, 1880 – Paris, 1901) was a poet and painter, Catalanist and anarchist, and, maybe what he is best known for, Picasso's friend. Together, they shared artistic endeavors in Barcelona and, in the summer of 1900, visited Santiago Rusiñol at the Cau Ferrat before moving to Paris in September. In Christmas they were back in Barcelona on their way to Malaga, Picasso wanted to persuade his family to buy him out of military service; Casagemas' mother had already paid the required 1500 pesetas. In Malaga, they had a violent argument and, while Carles returned to Paris, Picasso chose to stay in his birth town. The two friends would never see each other again.
On the 21st of January, 1900, the newspaper L'Eco de Sitges published "Amor Gris" (Sad Love) a text signed by Casagemas. It is highly probable that it had been written in Sitges since, from the same period, we find a letter written to Picasso and dated in the town. Casagemas was convalescent in the family house from a schizophrenic outbreak, his abuse of drugs and alcohol made him especially prone to suffering this mental disorder. In the text he talks of his feelings for a young woman, who he had fallen in love with in a hyperbolic and decadent manner; it might have been his own niece. His older sisters, Pepita and Mercè, spoilt him and "his family accustomed him, out of some hypothetical tenderness they felt for him, to a life with no specific occupation he could make a living out of", adds J.M Sucre in his memoirs (1963).
His sisters, by no means ready to accept this relationship and looking for some way to distract him from his infatuation, sent him to Paris with Picasso. However, the plan did not work as expected; there, he fell in love with a married woman, Laure Germaine Gargallo (París, 1880-1948), and his mental state began to deteriorate again. Carles ended his life in the Café Hippodrome, on February 17, 1901. He first attempted to kill Germaine by shooting at her but missed; not knowing she was lying unwounded on the ground, he then shot himself.
Picasso was deeply affected by his friend's death, so much so that it gave start to the artist's Blue Period. He traveled to Sitges to inform the family of Carles's death. He would visit Sitges again with his family on August 22, 1933, in very different circumstances.
Bibliography:
Jou Andreu, David (3-11-2017). “Lluïsa Casagemas i la partitura retrobada”. L’Eco de Sitges.
Eduard Vallès –comissari de l’exposició: Casagemas. El pintor sota el mite.
https://carlescasagemas.cat/category/biografia/la-familia-casagemas-coll/
Esquerda Bosch, Montserrat. Recull de premsa.
Esquerda-Bosch, Montserrat (2017). “Dues amigues escriptores”. La Xermada, núm. 50.
http://www.abc.es/cultura/arte/20141102/abci-casagemas-picasso-201411011955.html