Frederic Amat's Library: A Constellation of Friends

He describes it as an expanded library, because Frederic Amat's house—which he bought upon returning from New York in 1989 and has a facade full of embedded antlers (he is a Taurus)—is also his studio, "and the library is everywhere." Under a table with books he's reading, in a basket of lemons, a seventeen-year-old cat slumbers. Argos is the dog who welcomes him, the only one who recognized Ulysses upon his return to Ithaca in The Odyssey , "the first great novel of the West," says Amat. In 2010, he was offered the opportunity to illustrate Carles Riba's version, and he felt he was being given a double gift; his father, whom he used to accompany to the Sant Antoni market, gave him the Bernat Metge edition when he was the same age the cat is now.

The garden connects the different spaces of the house. In one, Amat paints in front of a window overlooking Barcelona; in another, he makes books with Mexican designer Estela Robles, with whom he has two children. Outside, water spurts from the mouth of a stone frog if you stroke it.

“You have to show the mystery, but never explain the secret,” he comments as he climbs a staircase lined with paintings by Keith Haring, photos by Colita, a signed poster by Robert Motherwell, and a reproduction of JV Foix’s La Ventada del Somni , “they are friends who keep me company.” Upstairs, of his own design, the library has a skylight so the sun doesn’t damage the books. Here he reads and writes. In the collections inherited from his father, there’s a gold dot on the spines of his favorites.

For Amat, alphabetical order doesn't work: "This is a cosmos of constellations with their own magnetisms." Facing Llull, the Rector of Vallfogona, Woolf, and Verdaguer, there's an infinity dedicated to "the maestro Lorca, who left his mark on me like a tattoo." Bergamín's first edition of Poet in New York , published in 1940; Poem of Deep Song ; Blood Wedding : "More than fetishism, it's a profound love." It was a luxury for him to bring Voyage to the Moon in 1998, the only script Lorca wrote, to the screen. Here are Amat's storyboard drawings and sketches for the set design for The Public , premiered in Milan in 1986 under the direction of Lluís Pasqual.

Cinema, photography, architecture, Picasso, Miró. “All this is Brossa,” he exhibits. They made Tal i tant together, and the poet dedicated Frègoli to him; when Tàpies visited him, he wrote a dedication in the same book. They are his academy: “I am the fruit of this; I have been lucky enough to have very good interlocutors.” He met Octavio Paz and his wife Marie-Jo while preparing an exhibition in 1978; their friendship lasted until their deaths. He was fascinated by the poem Blanco , and he brought it to the stage with the voices of Mario Gas, Lluís Homar, Paco Ibáñez, and Paz himself.

Brief partial autobibliography

From one word to another: the counted steps , by Octavio Paz, dedicated to Pere Gimferrer, with a prologue by Aurelio Major (Vaso Roto) Bound by his father, the greetings that JV Foix sent to family and friends, illustrated by Dalí, Mompou, Guinovart, Obiols, Tàpies, Miró, among others; it was Amat's first collaboration with Foix, in 1972, dedicated to the memory of Gabriel Ferrater, who died that year (the facsimile Ho sap tothom i és profecia. Nadals, Caps d'Any, Natalicis exists) ; One Thousand and One Nights (Galaxia Gutenberg), “one of the great publishing experiences of my life”; Illuminations , Arthur Rimbaud (Galaxia Gutenberg); The Odyssey , Homer (Encyclopedia) What is poetry? , Lawrence Ferlinghetti (City Lights); Tal i tant , Joan Brossa (Polígrafa); Historia naturae (Vegap) Seventy-three pages 73 of seventy-three books that Estela Robles loves

“Another great is Alejandro Rossi, and also Guillermo Cabrera Infante.” There are Robert Walser, Marguerite Duras, the Dada Manifesto, covers Amat has made, and collaborative works with other authors. “Now the important thing is to till and plant; the harvest will come.”

Not just in books. There's a story in every object, too. For example, at his school, they didn't give out medals; recognition came in the form of a stone with a plaque: "I got it for being who I was." He used to go to another school where they made him play the cornet (which he also still has), but he was a sad child there. At the experimental Betània-Patmos school, he had top-notch teachers, "and that changed my life." The man behind it was Emili Teixidor. He keeps folders with postcards of him, articles he wrote, and a portrait he painted of him.

Many books have documents within their pages, the obituaries of authors. During the lockdown, Amat sorted through the contents of some boxes, some of which had been sealed for more than half a century. When he opened them, the first thing he felt was the smell. Of India, or Oaxaca. He pulled out photos and correspondence at random, and it was a journey: “I am what I was,” he says, “I am, I was; and the funniest thing is that I haven't been yet.”

He burned some things, created Papers de Cendra . His descriptive geometry notes appeared, and he made a suit. On his 73rd birthday, Estela gave him page 73 of seventy-three books he loves. Amat says it would take 48-hour days and laments: "We won't finish this library in an afternoon!" Because it is a portrait of his work and his person, "the cultivation of a lifetime whose testimony are books," he concludes: "It is a constellation of friends."