'Picarol', 150 years of a story that goes from Ibiza to Cala d'Or, passing through Chicago

PalmaHe reached 95 years of age and was absolutely prolific. Josep Costa Ferrer, nicknamed Picarol, was an excellent draftsman and satirical cartoonist, a specialist in art and antiques, an amateur archaeologist, a gallery owner, also a pioneer of tourism and landscape defense, and even the creator of a utopian urbanization. Ibiza will remember him with an exhibition this summer, when it is 150 years since his birth, on June 7, 1876. That was the beginning of a life path that would culminate in Cala d’Or, Mallorca, after a North American adventure in Chicago.

The Vila City Council has programmed this exhibition as part of a new edition of the Fiestas de la Terra, in a municipal space whose dates will be announced shortly. The exhibition will feature a selection from the collection of caricatures by

Picarol owned by the Municipal Archive of Image and Sound of Ibiza (AISME), as well as press from the time with his published vignettes.

No one would say that this son of a family of sailors, born in Dalt Vila, would go on to spread the name of Ibiza, not only to neighboring Mallorca, where he acted as a sort of ambassador, but also to Barcelona and even the United States. In any case, his father –as Sonya Torres relates– was already in charge of the New Orleans route and had businesses in the steamships that plied the Mississippi.

That family moved around a lot. First, to Mallorca, where young Pep would meet a very peculiar schoolmate, named Joan March Ordinas. It was one of those friendships that start at the school desk and last a lifetime. Then, to Barcelona, where Picarol –his pseudonym as a caricaturist– would be born and he would share artistic adventures and, certainly, nights of revelry, with Santiago Rusiñol and Pablo Picasso, in the mythical venue Els Quatre Gats.

The son of a general who wanted to kill him

After freeing himself from military service in colonial Cuba during wartime by paying the sum of 1,500 pesetas – which was a lot of money at the time – Costa was able to begin his Architecture studies. But he quit them immediately when he started failing exams. What he was good at was drawing caricatures of his classmates. He was so skilled that the weekly Juventud published some of them.

Immediately, the satirical Barcelona press became interested in that young man. L’Esquella de la Torratxa and La Campana de Gràcia were the two publications he collaborated with simultaneously. Picarol's cartoons poked fun at everyone in power: politicians, businessmen, the police, the monarchy, the Catholic Church... The conservative Catalanist leader Francesc Cambó was one of his favorite targets. On the other hand, he sympathized with the workers and republicans. He created a prototype of the Catalan bourgeois, 'senyor Esteve'. Since this was also the name of a character by Santiago Rusiñol, Costa had to clarify that they had nothing to do with each other, to avoid misunderstandings.

How was Picarol

born? Rafael Perelló Paradelo recounts that he had already used two other pseudonyms before: Sancho and Caray d’Hache. The name Picarol is supposed to have come from the expression “ah, pícaro!”, but he even chose the drawing of a robin to accompany his signature. It was hard work – fortunately, he was a very fast drawer – poorly paid and looked down upon. Having a caricaturist in the family was also not at all appreciated. When he was courting the woman who would become his wife, her father demanded that, in order to marry her, he had to earn at least a duro a day, which he achieved through hard work.

The worst, however, were the reprisals. The legendary Cu-cut!

, in whose pages Costa published some caricatures, was stormed in 1905 by a group of military men who apparently did not appreciate his jokes. His colleague and friend Begueria, with whom he would take a short trip to Mallorca, ended up in prison. Picarol himself became the object of the wrath of a general's son, who wanted to kill him for a cartoon. He had to flee to France until the storm passed.

Josep Costa was a declared anti-war activist, as he demonstrated with his caricatures against the colonial Moroccan conflict. However, when the First World War arrived, he clearly took the side of the allies, the democratic powers. He drew a very laudatory caricature of the French general Joffre, who spoke Catalan because he was born in Roussillon, who, in gratitude, gave him his pipe. Even though Picarol did not smoke, he said that he would smoke this one for the rest of his life. He was also proposed for the Legion of Honour, but he refused it. Everything that sounded like a show-off horrified him: in fact, he left instructions that the time of his burial should not be announced, so as not to bother anyone.

From barbershop to Sala Barberini

In the bohemian Barcelona of the early twentieth century, Josep Costa was a regular at the mythical venue Els Quatre Gats, the same one frequented by Santiago Rusiñol, Ramon Casas, Isidre Nonell, and a young Picasso, who painted his portrait. The Malaga-born artist also shared the La Cova Artística group with him. Many years later, both of them very old, Picasso would write to Picarol: “Only you and I are left” [from those times].

Costa also took up collecting all sorts of old junk, which his house overflowed with, to the point of becoming an expert in antiques. And, incidentally, in painting. He would become an advisor to those who wished to acquire a good collection of works of art, as was the case of his former desk mate Joan March, whom he would advise on the decoration of his palace in Palma.

Precisely in the city, he opened an antique shop, although he continued to punctually send his contributions to Barcelona magazines. Since there was no fax, email, or anything similar at the time, he entrusted them to the waiters of the ships that plied the route between Mallorca and the Catalan capital. He knew them all.

In 1927, Josep Costa embarked on a brief American adventure, inaugurating a shop in Chicago, the Spanish Shop, also dealing in antiques. It seems he also collaborated with the Chicago Tribune. But he did not like the city's climate at all, with its intense heat in summer and polar cold in winter. Nor did he like the 'American Way of Life'. Thus, he chose his definitive base of operations: Mallorca, where he would remain until his death on December 9, 1971.

In 1929, Picarol opened the Galeries Costa, on Conqueridor street in Palma, opposite what was the Cercle Mallorquí. Everyone who was 'someone' in Mallorcan culture at the time attended the preview of the inauguration. The Galeries Costa were not just an exhibition space; they were also an art and antique shop, and a place for gatherings. When the space became too small, they acquired a neighboring premises: since it had been a barber shop, Costa, with his characteristic irony, christened it Sala Barberini.

All the prominent names in art in the Islands passed through the Galeries Costa: Antoni Gelabert, Tito Cittadini, Anglada Camarasa, Bernareggi, Dionís Bennàssar... His friend Picasso exhibited there for the first time in Mallorca. Dalí also showed his paintings there, causing a certain scandal, as was usual for him. Works by Van Gogh and Matisse were exhibited there. Later, his son Josep Maria took charge, keeping them open until 1976.

Gallery owner, antique dealer, merchant, cartoonist... Costa's mind never stopped. He had conceived a dream: to create a model development, an artists' colony. He first tried in the Pollença area, but the land was occupied by a seaplane base. Then, in Santanyí. He wanted to call it Cala d’Hort, in honor of a scene from his native island. But people started calling it Cala d’Or. And so it remained.

Picarol also wrote and published two pioneering tourist guides, one for Mallorca and one for Ibiza. Of course, his idea of tourism had little to do with what would come later. In fact, he was also one of the first to lament the destruction of the landscape that wild urban development generated in the last years of his life.

When the coup d'état broke out in 1936, with a victory for the rebels on the island, it is curious that Picarol, who had drawn furious cartoons against the right, businessmen, the Church, and the armed forces, was not repressed. According to Torres Planells, it was his old friend Joan March, an avowed enemy of the Republic and financier of Franco's conspiracy, who stood up for him before the new authorities. A difficult-to-dispute endorsement.

Picarol Josep Costa Ferrer spent his last years in Cala d’Or, where he continued to draw, although he did so as a hobby, as was the case with a final Christmas postcard he was to send to his friends. He was, emphasizes Fanny Tur, “a genius of drawing,” with an exceptional ability to create those satirical caricatures that brought him fame. The Cercle de Belles Arts of Palma created a competition in his name, and the memory of

Picarol has endured to the present day, perhaps outside of what would have been his will.