Perched on a hilltop, surrounded by terraced terrain, Valldemossa was named after the area’s original Moorish landowner, Muza. It is a beautiful and historic town in West Mallorca within the Tramuntana mountain range.
The Cartuja de Valldemossa is a monumental complex containing the ancient palace of a king that dates from 1309; a beautiful church with frescoes by Manuel Bayeu, Goya's brother-in-law; a beautiful and long corridor with white arches that leads to different cells that the monks inhabited for 400 years to find peace and rest; beautiful gardens and terraces with one of the most spectacular views of the Valldemossa valley; an old pharmacy that still contains ancestral utensils and medicines; an art collection of some of the most recognized Spanish and local painters, including Joan Fuster; a SXVI printing house and its xylographic collection; and a collection of Archduke Luis Salvador de Austria, cousin of Empress Sissi, who came to Mallorca with his steamboat and fell in love with this part of the island.
Rubén Darío, Azorín, Santiago Rusiñol, Eugeni d'Ors and Miguel de Unamuno all stayed there as did the Polish composer Frédéric Chopin and the French writer George Sand, who lived in the charterhouse in the winter of 1838-1839. Two large cells and a beautiful garden with impressive views of the Tramuntana mountain range made up what was their home for about two months. In Valldemosa Chopin composed some pieces for piano (preludes, polonaises, a mazurka...) and Sand finished her novel Spiridion. Furthermore, the author used her experiences on the island to publish in 1841, in instalments, in the magazine Revue des Deux Mondes, A winter in Mallorca; A year later it came out as a volume and, far from admiring the Mallorcan beauty, in its pages she mercilessly criticized the habits and customs of the island people. Dario wrote shared his reflections on the monastery in his poem La Cartuja.
The Municipal Musem of Valldemossa, housed in the Cartuja, consists of four sections: the old Guasp printing press with authentic seventeenth century printing plates and a collection of 1590 woodblocks for printing from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries; the hall dedicated to Archduke Ludwig Salvador of Austria.
The Museo de Pollenca organises an annual installation in the Convent Church, Església del Convent de Sant Domingo, the Convent now being the location for the Municipal Museum. This year's installation is Tercet by Danny Rolph. Tercet is an immersive experience, in which Rolph appropriates time, space, light, forms, words and colour. Shunning the message of a lineal narrative, the observer is invited to take part in a contemplative sensorial experience. The two part installation includes “This is Just To Say”, a large format diptych on various layers of polycarbonate that lends a sense of depth and movement to the work, and “Contact”, a four-sided construction made with painted transparent polycarbonate sheets placed in the centre of the space with a changing light gleaming from the interior. Rolph is recognised worldwide for his multi-layered, abstract, colour focused paintings. He continually questions surface tension and spatial relations via the mediums of Triplewall plastic and canvas surfaces, embracing joy, doubt and discovery within his creative processes.
The Cartuja de Valldemossa is a monumental complex containing the ancient palace of a king that dates from 1309; a beautiful church with frescoes by Manuel Bayeu, Goya's brother-in-law; a beautiful and long corridor with white arches that leads to different cells that the monks inhabited for 400 years to find peace and rest; beautiful gardens and terraces with one of the most spectacular views of the Valldemossa valley; an old pharmacy that still contains ancestral utensils and medicines; an art collection of some of the most recognized Spanish and local painters, including Joan Fuster; a SXVI printing house and its xylographic collection; and a collection of Archduke Luis Salvador de Austria, cousin of Empress Sissi, who came to Mallorca with his steamboat and fell in love with this part of the island.
Rubén Darío, Azorín, Santiago Rusiñol, Eugeni d'Ors and Miguel de Unamuno all stayed there as did the Polish composer Frédéric Chopin and the French writer George Sand, who lived in the charterhouse in the winter of 1838-1839. Two large cells and a beautiful garden with impressive views of the Tramuntana mountain range made up what was their home for about two months. In Valldemosa Chopin composed some pieces for piano (preludes, polonaises, a mazurka...) and Sand finished her novel Spiridion. Furthermore, the author used her experiences on the island to publish in 1841, in instalments, in the magazine Revue des Deux Mondes, A winter in Mallorca; A year later it came out as a volume and, far from admiring the Mallorcan beauty, in its pages she mercilessly criticized the habits and customs of the island people. Dario wrote shared his reflections on the monastery in his poem La Cartuja.
The Municipal Musem of Valldemossa, housed in the Cartuja, consists of four sections: the old Guasp printing press with authentic seventeenth century printing plates and a collection of 1590 woodblocks for printing from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries; the hall dedicated to Archduke Ludwig Salvador of Austria.
”Joan Miró. Universal Generosity and Commitment”, on show at the Municipal Museum in Valldemossa Monastery, contains over 50 posters, some plates that testify to the poster-making process, and a series of avant la lettre proofs dedicated to lithographer and collaborator Damià Caus, founder of the Barcelona printmaking studio Litografías Artísticas. The exhibition also features a documentary section, made up of correspondence between Joan Miró and the Mallorcan painter, art critic and essayist Bartomeu Lluís Ferrà Juan (Palma, 1893-1946), who kept in contact after studying together at Academia Galí in Barcelona.
Founded in January 2005, La Fundació Cultural Coll Bardolet was born out of the desire of artist Josep Coll Bardolet (Campdevànol, Girona 1912 – Valldemossa, Illes Balears 2007) to bequeath part of his painting collection to the town that had been his home since 1944.
Zupan & Zupan is an exhibition there by father and daughter, Bruno and Natasha Zupan. Art critic Ed McCormick, described Zupan’s work as such: "The real magic is in the paint surface itself, with its energetic bravura strokes, splashes, splatters, and drips forming a unified statement, as active, alive, and visually autonomous as an Abstract Expressionist work by de Kooning or Diebenkorn- yet simultaneously evoking the word outside the canvas. Among contemporary painters, Bruno Zupan alone possesses the singular sensibility to strike such a perfect balance between surface and subject, between a convincing pictorial lyricism and the matter-of-fact materiality that is the even larger truth and triumph of the most advanced modern art. Part of Zupan's appeal is his willingness to take the necessary risks in terms of putting the emotive element back into landscape painting. He possesses the stunning confidence to put aside historical timidity and confront nature directly, and he has the rare painterly ability to translate passionate responses to it into transcendent works of art. His rhapsodic brushwork and singular vision have garnered him a worldwide following among those who still seek beauty in the art of painting. Bruno Zupan is one of the last great romantics and for that alone his work is worth treasuring."
Natasha Zupan's "work is a union between the old and the new, playing with similar elements as her father in a modern manner. Combining renaissance hues with chiaroscuro, modern collages with mixed media, the Yale-educated artist innovates her own technique of modernism and admiration for the great masters. Showcasing a sense of rhythm and youth in her work, Zupan utilizes rich, saturated brushstrokes to play on light and shadow. Her union of the modern and the classic is displayed in the juxtaposition between her palettes and her subject matter."
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