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Sala Parés secures its future with the entry of Jaume Sabater as new majority partner
The entrepreneur and promoter of several cultural projects in Barcelona guarantees the continuity of the oldest active art gallery in the European Union, which will celebrate its 150th anniversary in 2027.
Sala Parés begins a new stage in its almost one hundred and fifty years of history with the entry of businessman Jaume Sabater as the new majority partner of the company. The Maragall family, at the helm of the historic Barcelona gallery, thus resolves the generational handover and ensures the continuity of one of the city's most emblematic cultural institutions.
Founded in 1877 and located on Petritxol Street in Barcelona, Sala Parés is the first art gallery established in Spain and the oldest operating gallery in the European Union. For almost a century and a half it has been a fundamental space for the dissemination of art, welcoming artists, collectors and culture lovers, and maintaining an essential role in Barcelona's artistic life.
The operation comes at a particularly significant time: in 2027 the gallery will celebrate its 150th anniversary. This change in the ownership structure allows us to face this anniversary with a more solid foundation and with a future project designed to guarantee the continuity of the institution for generations to come.
The lack of a family successor for the current director, Joan Anton Maragall Garriga, had led the ownership to consider the need to find a formula that would preserve the gallery's legacy and, at the same time, allow it to face the new challenges of the art market. With the arrival of Jaume Sabater, co-founder and CEO of Stoneweg, Sala Parés will maintain its line of action, both in the field of contemporary art and in its specialization in 19th and 20th century painting.
Sabater, who in recent years has promoted different cultural initiatives in Barcelona such as the Palau Martorell, the Prisma Barcelona project in the old Imax building in the Port, the future Carmen Thyssen Barcelona Museum or the recovery of the old Godó i Trias factory in Hospitalet de Llobregat, assumes his new role with the desire to strengthen a key institution of Catalan cultural heritage.
The new stage will keep Joan Anton Maragall Garriga at the helm of the gallery and will preserve the commitments made with the team, the artists and the cultural fabric of the country, as well as with the more than 40,000 visitors and collectors who participate in its activities every year. In addition to the exhibition program, which will continue to focus on local and international contemporary creation and the vindication of the great masters of the past, it is planned to expand the cultural activity with conferences, presentations and concerts.
With this incorporation, the Sala Parés opens a new stage that seeks to combine the preservation of a unique historical legacy with a look to the future. As Jaume Sabater has expressed, his desire is to contribute to providing “everything necessary to guarantee 150 more years of Sala Parés in Barcelona”, thus ensuring the continuity of one of the great symbols of European artistic history.
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