WORKS SEARCH
| Josep Mestres Cabanes extended his skills and his wide-ranging knowledge of decoration to the entire world of graphic design. During his life he designed mastheads for publications, festival programmes, menus, embroidery, parchments, illuminated capitals, ex-libris, commemorations of weddings and communions, programmes for the Liceu, visitors’ books and commercial designs, always with a great sense of beauty and knowledge of styles. One of the first examples we find is the masthead for the Boletín Escolar de las Escuelas Nacionales de San Lorenzo Savall, of Sant Vicenç de Castellet, in 1923, a kind of Baroque medallion with the school building inside. A logo from 1932 has been preserved dedicated to the Arts i Artistes association, attached to the Sant Josep Obrer Centre in Barcelona, a rather Noucentista and evolutionist design. With this kind of work, almost always commissions, Mestres Cabanes acted either through closeness or sympathy or out of the need for financial survival. Of all the work done in this area, the most important is undoubtedly that carried out between 1934 and 1936 for the Fantasio printing firm in Barcelona, a rare graphic testimony of art deco. Not only have the drawn and printed cartoons been preserved, many of the original and preparatory drawings have too, making it very valuable material today. Another block of designs to be reproduced would be those intended for programmes for the Gran Teatre del Liceu. Many unselected test pieces remain unpublished. The majority of these covers show the stage with the stalls, the wall paintings he painted for the Mirror Room or drawings devoted to Wagner or Wagnerian scenes. |
Design of cards and logos for the Fantasio printing firm.
Boxes for the Casas perfumery in Girona designed for the Fantasio printing firm. |
