Manufacturas Cañamás SA commercial bank. The hare and the tortoise.

Date: 1950 - 1980

Archive: Municipal Archive of Dosrius

Document type: Imatge fixa

Reference code: CAT-AMD-306-31013

Link to the online document

Description: On this occasion we have chosen this box from the Manufacturas Cañamás SA fund for several reasons: the importance of the company at a local and national level, the author of the design and the reason on which the design is based.
Manufacturas Cañamás, a company better known as “La Tortuga”, was a textile company that was born in the 1950s in Canyamars, bringing the phenomenon of industrialization to the municipality, before the residents mainly worked in the fields. In addition, this company over the years came to have 4 different headquarters: Canyamars, Vilalba Sasserra, Mataró and Burgos. In its heyday, the company attended congresses and meetings of the sector all over Europe, either to get design ideas for the clothes it made or to show its products. In addition, apart from the owners, Mr. Sanfeliu, the counts of Robert were partners.
The author of the design is Josep M. Rovira-Brull who was a Catalan painter, graphic artist, illustrator and sculptor of the post-war period. He was born in the neighborhood of Gràcia but most of his work was developed in the Maresme region. He produced a large amount of neo-expressionist, informalist, and surrealist work. He worked on advertising and merchandise for several brands and companies, including Manufacturas Cañamás SA or, the now-defunct Caixa Laietana.
Finally, the reason for the design. This refers to the classic fable “the hare and the tortoise”. This fable is attributed to the Greek Aesop and has had many versions throughout history (Jean de la Fontaine, Felix M Samaniego, Walt Disney,…). Finally, in the design you can see spellings in several European languages: English, German…

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