The things that were Temporary exhibition

The other woman is the most elusive of all the others that can be imagined, and the most suspect. She is a foreigner and therefore enigmatic -a mystery to unravel, a fear to overcome. And her condition as a woman adds a threat that is not always veiled, that combination of attraction and repulsion that beauty sometimes has, where it hurts because you don't expect it, that circumspection in the presence of a sinful, seductive femininity. Their uncertain origin is part of the fascinating mythology built around the gypsies, that ethnic group whose name changed from border to border and acknowledge no land other than the circle formed by the horses around the tent and the campfire. Emília Xargay and Montserrat Llonch painted their elusive gypsy women, and it could well be that the Girona artists recognised their neighbours as peers, with an anomaly similar to their own, that of women who painted, and who did so visibly and determinedly. Joan Orihuel, who taught both of them, is not, however, one for subtleties. He portrays a dead gypsy woman who, if the truth be told, interests him much less than the macabre little scene in which he has laid her to sleep.

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In the 1940s, several Girona artists painted portraits of gypsy women, and their paintings now form part of the collection of the History Museum. However, these works do not reflect or represent the reality of Girona's gypsy population; they only show how the city has always looked at the other women.