Antoni Vila Casas, pharmaceutical businessman, relevant patron of current Catalan art and an enthusiastic Catalanist, has died at the age of 92. Àngels Torras sent me a good documentary that he made for the Generalitat and his vision has forced me to reflect. I knew him little. Years ago I shared a table at a wedding, we met at a hotel in Mallorca the day Felipe González unexpectedly resigned as general secretary of the PSOE, and I met him at some events. The last one, in tribute to the late gallery owner Joan Gaspar.
Vila Casas, tall and elegant, always inspired my interest… and some sympathy. For his affability and his career. Create Prodesfarmastarting from a small laboratory, and turning it into a giant that was committed to research and a leader in antidepressants in Spain, consecrated it as great businessman. But at the age of 66 – perhaps due to lack of offspring – he merged it with Almirall Laboratories (Gallardo family) and ended up selling. And since then He dedicated himself to buying works of Catalan art after 1930 and with his foundation he set up three museums: sculpture in Palafrugell, photography in Torroella and painting in Barcelona. And to help. From the Fundació Miró to the Vall d’Hebron hospital (spaces for leukemia) and Catalan initiatives.
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Vila Casas did not hide his independence movement. I remember a dinner in Empordà (summer 2019) in which the guests expressed very different opinions about the electoral repetition of that November. Vila Casas did not hesitate and said that he could vote for Junts, Esquerra or the CUP. He wanted independence, period.
He had chaired Farmaindustria, the pharmaceutical lobby. He was therefore anything but naïve. Why then so much determination, ignoring that the independence movement made big mistakes? Because a good part of the Spanish political class does not yet admit plurinationality despite the fact that the Constitution speaks of “regions and nationalities.” And Vila Casas expressed the feelings of a part, how much? of the Catalan ruling layers.