This exhibition in remembrance of Rafael Santos Torroella's death in 2002 (Port-Bou, 1914-Barcelona, 2002), intended to present him as an intellectual with a distinctive understanding of culture.

 

Santos Torroella did a wide range of activities throughout his life: he was a poet, artist, art critic, collector, researcher, art promoter and teacher. He could be considered a "humanist" for the diversity and plurality of his knowledge. But his view and interpretation of the world had little to do with those of the "traditional humanist". Santos Torroella was a "frontier" intellectual crossing over art, poetry, collecting, and research, all of which implied a cultural ideal and moral position.
 
The exhibition, whose curators were Elvira Maluquer and Jaume Vidal Oliveras, was presented at two institutions: the Círculo de Bellas Artes showed Santos Torroella's personal art collection, and the Residencia de Estudiantes exhibited a bibliographical selection about his career as an intellectual. The two exhibitions shared the title and complemented each other, recreating Santos Torroella's world and intellectual work.