This exhibition will focus on one of the protagonists of the museum's modern art collection to find out all about his contradictory and dogmatic personality, in the light of the unpublished information that has appeared in different archives and the contextualisation of his work in the field of interwar European art.

Feliu Elias (Barcelona, 1878-1948) is a multifaceted personality in which the painter Elias coexists with the cartoonist Apa, the art historian and critic Joan Sacs and even the “Green Demon”, another of his aliases when he signs articles on the technique and trades of painting.

The exhibition will present a synthesis of his creative activity, focusing especially on his miniaturist brushstroke painting that in a magical realism equally exalts his family environment - a humble light bulb, a fried egg, a Jouy canvas, an Elizabethan chair or a mortar — as his daughters or artistic passions, such as Dutch painting, Alfred Sisley, or Chinese pottery. It is a style of painting that is not subject to major technical developments, that remains impassive and faithful to specific themes throughout his life, and that radiates his predilection for material culture.

The exhibition will show the life itinerary in relation to the artist's artistic travels and exiles. It will also bring together some of the objects that were part of Elias' collection (glass, ceramics, oriental objects, etc.) captured by his brushes and that will be presented in dialogue through a sequence structured in thematic sections such as, for example, still lifes, interiors and portraits. Finally, the "collisions" between the critic Joan Sacs and the avant-garde will be explored, without forgetting the affiliations of his work with other Catalan realisms and from different geographies and traditions. In fact, his work connects in an extraordinary way with the state of mind of interwar Europe.

Another focus of the exhibition is the links of Feliu Elias with Sabadell, where the family came from. Two of Feliu Elias' brothers, Lluís and Francesc, were dedicated to different artistic facets: the first, a comedian and illustrator known as Anem; the second, a potter. In 1965, Lluís Elias bequeathed his art collection and objects to the Sabadell Art Museum, and his archive to the Bosch i Cardellach Foundation. Therefore, in parallel with the exhibition at the Museu Nacional, the Sabadell Art Museum will focus on the Elias brothers and the Apa’s open dialogue with creators linked to Sabadell.