Pijoan, Josep, 1881-1963

Josep Pijoan i Soteras (Barcelona, 1881-Lausanne, 1963). Architect, essayist, poet, historian and art critic. Bachelor of Arts and Architecture. He was a member of the Centre Escolar Catalanista and he became friends with Joan Maragall. Among other publications, he contributed to La Renaixença, Pèl i ploma (where his first poems were published), La veu de Catalunya and La Vanguardia.

He was an important cultural activist who helped to organise the International Congress of the Catalan Language at the International Exhibition of Fine Arts, as well as in the creation of the Biblioteca de Catalunya (he acquired the library collection of Marià Aguiló, the core of the future Library), the Institut d'Estudis Catalans (Institute of Catalan Studies) and the Barcelona Museum of Art (today MNAC). He achieved international renown for the protection and restoration of Catalan Romanesque art. He worked in Italy, the UK, Canada and the United States. He worked as a cultural advisor to the League of Nations.

His most famous work was Summa artis, a general history of art of which Pijoan wrote the first sixteen volumes. Other works included Les pintures murals catalanes (1907), El meu don Joan Maragall (1927) and Les pintures murals romàniques de Catalunya (1948).

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