Pere Forment En Cuca

"In the late 19th century, beer halls became fashionable establishments in many European cities, places where artists gathered to talk and debate. The transformation of the Cafè Continental into the Cerveseria Cau Ferrat (Cau Ferrat Beer Hall), which happened in the summer of 1895, cannot be disassociated with the presence of the Luminist painters in Sitges and the close relationship that Santiago Rusiñol, the spearhead of Modernism, had forged with the town. As we can see, the beer hall, which was owned by Pere Forment and located on Passeig de la Ribera, adopted the same name that Rusiñol had given first to his studio in Barcelona and since 1893 to his house in Sitges. The décor of the beer hall featured the works of many of the artists who contributed to turning Sitges into a point of reference of Catalan painting at the turn of the 20th century. The Museu of Maricel shows eleven of the paintings that decorated the walls of the beer hall. They include the portrait of the owner, Pere Forment, known as En Cuca, whom Rusiñol immortalised in the midst of working, serving absinth. By the same author we can see an imaginary recreation of mediaeval Sitges, whose counterpoint is the Sitges of the future, a work by Miquel Utrillo, where many tourists were already present. The paintings La pesca (The Catch) by Mas i Fondevila and La recol·lecció de la malvasia (The Malvasia Grape Harvest) by Joaquim de Miró, referred to the bases of the local economy. The group was rounded out by six cornucopias, in which Antoni Almirall and Càndid Duran depicted different landscapes of Sitges and a bottle of muscatel. In one of them, entitled Els pintamones (The Daubers), Duran portrayed the gang of painters who had participated in the project. The Cerveseria Cau Ferrat closed its doors in 1905. (Museu de Maricel, Sitges, Col. d'Art de la Vila, 44188)"