Francesc d’Assís Galí i Fabra (Barcelona, ​​1880-1965), author of the paintings on the dome that crowns the Palau Nacional, was one of the most important figures in Catalan art in the first half of the 20th century. Trained alongside Pompeu Fabra, he renewed Catalan artistic pedagogy during the Noucentisme period, becoming the teacher of an entire generation of artists from his School of Art -where he trained Joan Miró and Llorens Artigas- and the Escola Superior de Bells Oficis de la Mancomunitat de Catalunya.

Galí also developed a fruitful artistic career as a painter, draftsman, muralist, poster artist and illustrator. His work spans all of Catalan modernity: modernism, symbolism, noucentisme and the avant-garde. Despite his merits, Galí chose to play an invisible role: downplaying himself as an artist, working in the shadow of his disciples and unconcerned about his legacy. This exhibition aims to make visible what he wanted hidden. To vindicate the footprint of the one who did not want to leave a trace. At the same time, the exhibition explores a chapter in the origins of the Museum, in the context of the great expansion project that has as its horizon the centenary of the International Exposition of 1929.

Galí was one of the artists who most intensely participated in the Barcelona International Exposition of 1929. Commissioned by its general curator, Lluís Plandiura, he created several promotional posters; together with Ramon Sarsanedas he designed the Paravent de la Creació, for the Pavelló del Artistes Reunits, as well as the diorama for the great exhibition El arte en España. His most notable work, however, was the large mural of the central dome of the Palau Nacional in which he represented 35 allegorical figures of Fine Arts, Science, Religion and the Earth. To paint it, Galí spent more than half a year on precarious scaffolding thirty metres high.

The Civil War cut short Galí's career. As Director General of Fine Arts of the Republic, he was one of those responsible for moving the works from the Museo del Prado to the border in 1938, and he too was forced into exile, spending ten years in London.

The exhibition is complemented by the exhibition Galí: exile and evasion, which can be visited at the Museum of Exile, MuME, at La Jonquera, between 30th November, 2024 and 3rd July, 2025, and which reconstructs the tragic moment of his departure to London and the relationship with the surrealist painter Ithell Colquhoun, which would transform his life and artistic career.