Everyone arrives in Cadaqués with Dalí on their mind, and fairly so: he lived here, his house is here. But this village's art history has a second chapter almost nobody knows, and it starts in an abandoned anchovy factory. In 1973, an Italian-Swiss architect named Lanfranco Bombelli cleared it out to hang art on its walls, and that room on Carrer Hort d'en Sanés hosted the first Spanish exhibitions of Marcel Duchamp, Joseph Beuys, David Hockney, and Jasper Johns. The gallery is still open today. This is its story, and the story of a village with more than fifteen galleries and over sixty resident artists.
An architect, a friend, and an empty factory
Lanfranco Bombelli Tiravanti was an architect, Italian-Swiss, and his bond with Cadaqués had something personal about it from the start: he restored a section of the village cemetery to bury his friend Peter G. Harnden. Shortly after, he cleared out an old anchovy factory to turn it into an exhibition space, and on 27 July 1973 he opened Galeria Cadaqués.
Take a moment with that image: a space that smelled of salted fish, in a fishing village reached only by a winding road, turned into a contemporary art gallery out of friendship and sheer will. There was no business plan to justify it. It worked out anyway.
Duchamp, Beuys, Hockney: firsts in Spain
Between 1973 and 1997, Bombelli's gallery gave the first Spanish exhibitions to Marcel Duchamp, Richard Hamilton, Joseph Beuys, John Cage, David Hockney, Jasper Johns, and Dieter Roth. Read that again: Duchamp's first exhibition in Spain wasn't in Madrid or Barcelona; it was in Cadaqués, in a former anchovy factory.
It wasn't entirely a coincidence. Duchamp spent summers in the village, and in Dalí's wake came an international artistic community that turned these streets into an improbable crossroads of avant-gardes. Bombelli didn't bring art to a desert: he gave a room to something that was already in the village's air.
Huc Malla picks up the thread
In 2003, Huc Malla reopened the gallery with Bombelli's own blessing, and in 2013, to mark its fortieth anniversary, it was renamed Galeria Cadaqués – Huc Malla. It's still on Carrer Hort d'en Sanés 7, in the heart of the old town, and it's still the village's reference gallery.
It's worth visiting even if you're not buying anything: it's Spanish art history, still active, with no entry fee, no queue, and no coaches at the door. The kind of place you walk into out of curiosity and leave understanding a little better why this village attracted who it attracted.
More than fifteen galleries in a village of two thousand
Galeria Cadaqués is the most important, but it's not alone: the village has more than fifteen galleries in total. On the same Carrer Hort d'en Sanés is the Miniprint Galeria Fort, showing finalists of the international Miniprint competition. On Carrer Unió you'll find Galeria Iturria, founded by Uruguayan painter Ignacio Iturria, and Marges-U, with its Catalan-Japanese fusion. And on Plaça Doctor Trémols, L'Amistat has occupied the old Casino building for over a century.
Today, more than sixty artists live in Cadaqués, many with studios open to the public. Wandering between galleries makes as good an afternoon plan as any cove, and in winter, a considerably better one.
How to plan a gallery afternoon
The route plans itself, since the spaces cluster together. Start on Hort d'en Sanés, where three consecutive addresses hold Galeria Cadaqués – Huc Malla, the Miniprint Galeria Fort, and — June to August only — Espai Dos, plus Patrick J. Domken's gallery with work by Japanese painter Koyama at number 11. Continue along Carrer Unió, with Iturria, Marges-U, and Sala d'Art Maria Ekengren almost next door to each other, and finish at Bellaire 6, where Blanco Mora Art has backed emerging artists since 2021.
It all fits into an unhurried afternoon, with no tickets and no queues, which is more than can be said for almost any cultural plan on the Costa Brava in summer. And if a room catches you, nobody minds if you linger: in this village, looking at art slowly is a local tradition with half a century of pedigree.