About the Artist

Xavier Corberó i Olivella (13 June 1935 – 24 April 2017) was a prominent Catalan artist, best known for monumental public sculptures and his extensive house complex in Esplugues de Llobregat near Barcelona. He is widely considered the most important Catalan artist since Gaudí and one of Spain’s most celebrated sculptors.

Corberó's patrilineal family has its roots in Lleida, where the family held a tradition of metalworking, especially in bronze. Corberó's grandfather Pere Corberó i Casals (1875-1959) was an entrepreneur and artist whose works included the bronze memorial on the birthplace of Enrique Granados in Lleida. The Corberó foundry produced sculptures by prominent Catalan sculptors of the time such as Pablo Gargallo, Josep Viladomat and Frederic Marès. It was also an industrial and commercial business that sold bronze doors, chandeliers, fountains, and other decorative items, with a showroom in downtown Barcelona at Rambla de Catalunya 105, and a workshop nearby at Carrer Aribau 103.

Corberó's father, Xavier Corberó i Trepat (1901-1981), also worked in the family bronze workshop. During the Spanish Civil War, Corberó i Trepat fought in the Spanish Republican Armed Forces and was separated from his family. Corberó's mother Montserrat, born Olivella i Vidal, passed away in 1936 while giving birth to his younger brother, who in turn died from smallpox a few years later.

Corberó lived his childhood through the turmoil and scarcity of the civil war and early years of Francoist Spain. In 1950 he enrolled at Escola Massana, and in 1953 volunteered for military service in the Spanish Air Force. In 1955 he lived briefly in Paris and Stockholm, then in London where he was the first-ever Spanish student at the Central School of Arts and Crafts. He then went on to work for a while at the Medici Foundry in Lausanne.

In Barcelona in the early 1960s he befriended Ricardo Bofill, Antonio Gades, Luis Marsans, and Manuel Viola. In 1962 he moved to New York City at Viola's suggestion, where he spent time with Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst and Man Ray before moving back to Barcelona in the mid-1960s. In the ensuing years he immersed himself further in the artistic community of Barcelona and Cadaqués, developing a close friendship with Salvador Dalí (whom he described as his "first patron”) as well as with Jorge Castillo, Robert Llimós , Joan Miró, Elsa Peretti and Josep Lluís Sert, among others.

Corberó had his first metal sculptures exhibited in 1955 at the third Hispano-American Biennial Exhibition. He participated in successive sessions of the avant-garde Saló de maig  exhibition in Barcelona and won awards there in 1960 and 1961. He had his first solo exhibition in Munich in 1963, for which he received a Gold Medal from the State of Bavaria. Later solo exhibitions included shows at the Art Institute of Chicago (1964), Staempfli Gallery in New York (1966, 1975, 1980), Meadows Museum in Dallas (1980), and McNay Art Museum in San Antonio (1985).

By the early 1970s he was printing etchings on behalf of Miró and producing jewelry for Peretti in his Esplugues workshop. Around that time he also met the British landscape architect Russell Page, of whom he viewed himself as a disciple. From the mid-1970s he again spent extended periods in New York, where his circle included Claes Oldenburg, Richard Serra, Donald Sultan, Bryan Hunt, Beverly Pepper, Vincent Desiderio, Kenneth Frampton, and Robert Hughes.

He was also the designer of the 1992 Olympic medals, for which on his insistence real gold was used for the first time.That same year he received the Creu de Sant Jordi Award from the Generalitat de Catalunya, in recognition of his role in Barcelona's public sculpture program. In 2000 he became a member of the Reial Acadèmia Catalana de Belles Arts de Sant Jordi.

Corberó died in April 2017, aged 81, and was buried at Montjuïc Cemetery in Barcelona.

Corberó's monumental sculptures can be seen in many places throughout Catalonia, including Barcelona, Esplugues de Llobregat, El Prat de Llobregat, Sabadell, Terrassa, and Cassà de la Selva. Other works are in Palma de Mallorca, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, London, Beirut, Dubai, and Chicago, as well as in numerous museums such as the Meadows Museum in Dallas, the Nassau County Museum of Art, the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, the Victoria and Albert Museum, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.


Espai Corberó

In 1968, Corberó started acquiring land, including a former potato farm, bordering Montserrat Street in the Barcelona suburb of Esplugues de Llobregat, not far from where his parents lived. He developed it into a highly elaborate complex of spaces, known as of 2022 as "Corberó's space" (Espai Corberó).

The complex encompasses some eight acres spread over nine interconnected buildings with a dozen courtyards, all nestled among more than 300 archways.

While Corberó was alive, the property was partly devoted to hosting artists-in-residence as well as his own home. The sprawling compound includes a significant share of his life's work and personal collections, and he kept building it up until his death.

In July 2022, it was reported that Corberó's heirs would sell the complex to the municipality of Esplugues for development as a cultural property. It opened to visitors on 18 May 2024, on the occasion of International Museum Day.


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