Exhibitions
The Toy Museum pays tribute to Josep Maria Joan Rosa with the exhibition A Museum of Authorship
Since mid-August, you can visit the temporary exhibition dedicated to the late Josep Maria Joan i Rosa (founder of the Toy Museum of Catalonia) entitled A Museum of an Author . The Toy Museum wanted to make this reminder, since "there are few museums that are the work of an author, because museums like Picasso, Dalí, Miró, Tàpies, Van Gogh... are dedicated to the work of the author, because he was the creator in the fullest sense of the word" according to one of the Museum's patrons, Jaume Guillamet i Lloveras.
It should be remembered that Rosa, from the beginning, gathered the collection, which today exceeds 20,000 pieces, sixty years ago, and that she already began collecting leftover toys from shops that were closing, in Figueres and elsewhere, with the help of Pilar Casademont Sadurní, her romantic partner.
He then designed and set up the first Museum in the dining room and rooms of the old Hotel Paris and managed to get institutions such as Figueres City Council, the Generalitat de Catalunya, the Girona Provincial Council and the Alt Empordà Regional Council to participate in the Foundation's Board of Trustees, supporting illustrious experts and friends, among whom Joan Brossa, José Corredor Matheos, Daniel Giralt-Miracle and Josefina Matamoros stood out.
Guillamet also reminds us that the founder gave Figueres his large collection of games and toys, exceptional in the entire world, in exchange for just one thing: the purchase and adaptation of the new Museum building, considered the most important private building in Figueres since the 17th century.
Rosa has received many donations of games and toys from all over the world. She has personally attended to and guided many of the thousands of visitors and when she turned eighty, she asked the younger ones to rethink her project of what the Museum should be like in the not too distant future. According to Guillamet “ those who have accepted to be her heirs, together with her daughter, Anna Joan Casademont, feel proud to proclaim their admiration and support for the exceptional work of Josep Maria Joan i Rosa and to continue learning with their permanent inspiration from her memory ”.
This exhibition will be open to the public until the first week of September 2025 during the Museum's regular opening hours.
