March 31 - 2026 - Sculptor, ceramist and engraver Sergi Mas dies at 95

A few days before the passing of Sergi Mas, a fire tore through the Arinsal water factory. Amid the devastation, a discovery was made: the ceramic mural he had created for the factory survived almost untouched. It felt like more than coincidence—it was as if his spirit had chosen to endure, a quiet rebirth through art.

Sergi Mas was more than an artist; he was a guardian of Andorra’s cultural soul. He was never simply an artisan, nor merely an artist: he was both at once—and during seven decades, shaped sculpture, engraving, painting, and ceramics, weaving tradition into every piece. Though born in Barcelona, his heart belonged to Andorra, where he became a tireless advocate for its heritage and mountain style.

His workshop was his sanctuary, filled with his creations and the company of his cats. In 1991, he founded La Xarranca, an artistic collective that strengthened the country’s cultural fabric and gave space for others to create.

His style remained faithful to the Pyrenean tradition—simple, sometimes bordering on the naïve, yet always sincere. He carved wooden sculptures such as the Mare de Déu de Meritxell, engraved the beautiful typical Pyrenean salt containers, and countless objects that spoke of everyday life in the mountains. Through his writings and his collection of traditional artifacts, he reminded us that art is not only about beauty but about memory, origins, and the value of simple things.

His work can still be admired today in emblematic places such as, the furniture of Casa de la Vall, what was once a bare Council meeting room, with four undecorated walls and a few old chairs, was transformed by his wooden paneling—just as he reshaped the Court of Justice room on the ground floor.

To the furniture for the old Sindicatura office and the Lauredià commune, illustrations for books, the bas-relief of the Marratxa dance offered to Co-Prince De Gaulle. These spaces carry his presence; he was a guardian of popular art, of antiques, of traditions nearly lost. He recovered folklore, ethics, and aesthetics from the hands of ancestors, he found a way to keep alive the pulse of popular tradition.

Above all, Sergi Mas was a profound connoisseur of Pyrenean culture. His work was a dialogue with tradition, a way of preserving and reinterpreting forms, objects, and imagery so that they might live again. He did not merely craft – he remembered. He did not merely preserve—he reimagined. And in doing so, he gave Andorra not only art, but memory itself.

During the pandemic, photographer Laura Gálvez-Rhein created a project she had long wanted to put together: a photo book capturing Sergi’s final days in his historic Aixovall workshop before relocating to Plaça Laurèdia. The book became a ‘deferred farewell’, revealing the most personal side of Sergi Mas—through both images and texts. In January 2022 the book was presented at the Taranmana Art Gallery by the photographer herself @lgalvezr.photography accompanied by her father, writer David Gálvez.

I would like to collect some passages from the tribute made by, at that time, Silvia Riva González, Minister of Culture and Sports of the Government of Andorra, in the book: Sergi Mas. Deferred farewell.

(…) an artist who has become the heritage of all Andorrans. (…) who has through his work, been a very valuable element in preserving our identity and keeping our traditions alive. Sergi Mas has obtained the recognition and esteem of an entire country and has acquired the status of Andorran artist in his own right; (…)

Laura Gálvez Rhein graduated in Photography from the Institute of Photographic Studies of Catalonia in 2009. In the documentary field, she works on social issues with an anthropological approach and is particularly interested in identity subject to individual memory, col. educational and historical.

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