Collection

About the collection

The collection of Es Baluard Museu d’Art Contemporani de Palma includes over 800 works dating from the late 19th century to the present day, and heritage responsibility is one of the institution’s clear fundaments and its primary basis.

The most important artists and movements that have in the past converged, and continue to converge in the Balearic Islands, displayed in relation to the national and international artistic contexts, comprise a rich, complex and continually-evolving body that gained shape after the first presentation of the collection on 30th January 2004, when Es Baluard Museu was inaugurated.

Since then, the initial core of the museum’s collection – formed by the donation and deposit of works from the Fundació d’Art Serra as well as the works deposited by Palma City Council, the Council of Mallorca and the Government of the Balearic Islands – has increased through the inclusion of works acquired, donated and temporarily ceded by artists, collectors and entities, whom we must thank for their collaboration and generosity towards the museum.

Initially, an evolutionary discourse of the history of recognised art is revealed. A construction based, in our case, on pictorial modernism and the renovation of the landscape genre in Spain, insisting on the importance of Mallorca in its development. Joaquim Mir, Santiago Rusiñol, Hermen Anglada-Camarasa, Joaquín Sorolla, Antoni Gelabert and Tito Cittadini are some of the key artists of that period, between the late 19th century and the 1930s; and alongside them, two women creators, Pilar Montaner de Sureda and Norah Borges, linked to the artistic and literary trends of the age.

Meanwhile, the early years of the 20th century bore witness to the upsurge of two avant-garde movements in Europe which rebelled against the hegemony of western figurative art, a state of cultural crisis heightened after World War I, which would continue in the 1940s and ‘50s, advocating the questioning of the artistic object. The artists represented include María Blanchard, Wifredo Lam, Fernand Léger, André Masson, Roberto Matta, Joan Miró, Robert Motherwell, Jorge Oteiza, Picasso, Juli Ramis and Antoni Tàpies, among others.

New figuration, pop art, minimalism or conceptual art are just some of the tendencies that rose up from the ‘sixties on, a period of a succession of social and cultural transformations which would later be labelled “post-modernism”. Erwin Bechtold, Joan Brossa, Erró, Juan Genovés, Hans Hartung, Rebecca Horn, Antoni Miralda, Pablo Palazuelo, Antonio Saura and Rafael Tur Costa, for example, preceded the new generation of recognised painters: Miquel Barceló, José Manuel Broto, Miguel Ángel Campano, Maria Carbonero, Ramon Canet, Luis Gordillo, Anselm Kiefer, Juan Uslé…

The wide diversity of languages shapes the current art scene: Lida Abdul, Marina Abramović, Pilar Albarracín, Christian Boltanski, Robert Cahen, Daniel Canogar, Toni Catany, Carles Congost, Ñaco Fabré, Mónica Fuster, Alberto García-Alix, Susy Gómez, Núria Marqués, Jorge Mayet, Joan Morey, Michael Najjar, Marina Núñez, Bernardí Roig, Francisco Ruiz de Infante, Amparo Sard, Antoni Socías and Nicholas Woods are some of the exponents of this evolution, and of the permeability and opening-up towards new discourses and investigations of language. We are interested in their names – obviously recognised in the art system – but also in the interstices and signifiers of the works by which they are represented.

The threads that intertwine in this evolutionary interpretation enable one to observe the gaps and fissures and open up new critical debates beyond the hegemonic discourses of the history of art. Our aim is to contribute to the construction of these new ways of analysing and preserving material and immaterial heritage, attentive to the past and never ceasing to look to the future.

In some cases, the images of the works are not reproduced due to copyright issues.

Policy for incorporation of new works: purchase, deposit and donation 

One of the premises of Es Baluard Museu is to promote the knowledge of art in general through its Collection. A collection which, ever since it was created, has enjoyed the inestimable contribution of the patrons of Fundació Es Baluard, Palma City Council, the Council of Mallorca, the Government of the Balearic Islands and Fundació d’Art Serra, complemented by the contribution of artists, collectors and entities which have made deposits and donations and also the purchase of works carried out by Fundació Es Baluard since its inauguration in 2004. We are therefore talking of a melting pot, a collection of collections which must move forward by bridging the gaps between periods, creative attitudes and significant pieces.

The growth and development of the collection takes place with the consultancy of the Acquisitions Commission, comprised of external experts and those from the museum itself, which meets periodically every year to assess and propose new works to be incorporated in the collection through purchase, deposit or donation.

Deposit, preferably for a minimum period of 4 years, and donation of Works are the two customary contractual formulas – with free transmission – that the museum establishes for the entry of works into the collection; the purchase of works is subject to the economic funds in the museum’s annual budget.

Proposals can be sent to the attention of the Museum Director and should include a letter of presentation, detailed information of the works, colour images, economic estimate and value and any other relevant information for consideration, by post or e-mail (soad.houman@esbaluard.org).

Request for loans

Es Baluard Museum’s collection contains over 800 works dating from the late 19th century to the present day, and includes paintings, sculptures, photographs, videos, installation and works on paper. The museum’s loan policy for works is based on public access to the collection, with the aim of promoting knowledge and the dissemination of art.

Formal requests for loans, which should contain all the information regarding the organising body, the exhibition and the works requested, must be sent to the attention of the Director of the Museum, by post or e-mail (Artistic Area / Conservation Department: soad.houman@esbaluard.org.

The request must be sent at least 6 months prior to inauguration for evaluation (9 months in the case of international loans). Any request received within a period of under 6 months before inauguration of the exhibition will be registered, but may be rejected due to lack of time. The request will be assessed by the Museum Director and presented to the Executive Committee for approval. After the loan is approved, the processing of the documents and requirements of the work will be coordinated by the Conservation Department.