Barcelona and Modernity: Gaudí to Dalí - the first comprehensive exhibition of its type ever mounted in America - explores the diverse and innovative work of Barcelona’s artists, architects, and designers in the years between the Barcelona Universal Exposition of 1888 and the imposition of the Fascist regime of Francisco Franco in 1939. Barcelona and Modernity offers new insights into the art movements that advanced the city’s quest for modernity and confirmed it as the primary center of radical intellectual, political, and cultural activities in Spain. Pablo Picasso, Joan Miró, Salvador Dalí, and Antoni Gaudí are among the internationally renowned artists who contributed to the creative vitality of Barcelona and the flourishing of Catalan culture.

The exhibition features some 300 remarkable works in a range of media: painting, sculpture, drawings, prints, posters, decorative objects, furniture, architectural models, and design. La Vie and Blindman’s Meal, two of the greatest paintings from Picasso’s Blue Period; portraits by Ramon Casas; Isidre Nonell’s depictions of gypsies; Miró’s The Farm; Dalí’s surrealist paintings, as well as furniture designed by Gaudí and an original BKF (“butterfly”) chair are among the masterworks gathered from museums and private collections around the world for this major exhibition.