Barcelona Llibres

Photography historian Laura Terré hosted the ceremony, in which relatives of the Català photographers, Francesc Català-Roca’s son Andreu Català Pedersen, and Rafael Català i Dalmau, Pere Català i Roca’s son also took part.

The Ciutat Vella District Plenary last May unanimously approved the naming of a square in Ciutat Vella Plaça dels Fotògrafs Català, after Pere Català i Pic, Francesc Català Roca and Pere Català Roca. The District Council paid tribute to them as examples of the artistic and cultural movements and trends during the 20th century, and also because their work is already part of the iconography of our country’s history.

PERE CATALÀ I PIC (Valls, Alt Camp, 1889 – Barcelona, 1971)
Photographer and publicist, father of Francesc and Pere Català i Roca, who were also photographers.
He settled in Valls in 1915, and built an interesting photographic collection based on themes connected with art and ethnography. In 1932 he moved to Barcelona, where he specialised in photography for advertising, contributing to the Mirador, Revista Ford, Publi-Graf and Nova Iberia magazines. He fostered relations with Alghero, notably the so-called ‘reunion trip of 1960’.

FRANCESC CATALÀ-ROCA (Valls, Alt Camp, 1923 – Valls, Alt Camp, 10 February 2009)
Francisco Càtala-Roca is considered the master of documentary photography in Catalonia. He opened his own studio in 1947, and began to take on street photography commissions. From then on, he worked incessantly, on photographs for publications such as Destino, Gaceta Ilustrada and La Vanguardia, on studio work, book illustrations in collaboration with renowned architects, sculptors and painters such as Josep M. Sert, Eduardo Chillida and Joan Miró, on the history of Catalan art, and photo-reportages on the real Spain. Within a context of photographic neo-realism, Català-Roca’s work was a bold form of photography in which he sought unusual points of view far away from the conventions of the time, and played with the aesthetic power of contrast and shadow, always focussing on the human element. He was awarded the Creu de Sant Jordi in 1985. A short time ago Barcelona City Council and Grup Enciclopèdia posthumously published his book, La pell de Barcelona [The Skin of Barcelona]. The layout was originally designed by the photographer himself, and recovered from his archive. In it, more than 200 images of Barcelona are presented in a form of dialogue over a succession of double-page spreads.

PERE CATALÀ I ROCA (Valls, Alt Camp, 1922 – Barcelona, 5 March 1998)
Pere Català i Roca worked for magazines and publications such as Revista, Destino, Gaceta Ilustrada and La Vanguardia. In his early years he also took photographs for posters and films. In 1953 he held the first individual exhibition of his creative work. From then on, he illustrated a considerable number of books, especially on artistic themes, and also produced photo-reportages. Català Roca’s photography is based on a neo-realist concept of the image, constantly seeking an unexpected point of view, and above all human interest. By many critics, he was considered to be the most important Catalan photographer of the 20th century. He was awarded the Ciutat de Barcelona prize twice (1951 and 1952), the Spanish Ministry of Culture’s National Award for Plastic Arts (1983) and the one from the Generalitat de Catalunya (1991), the Creu de Sant Jordi (1992) and the Gold Medal for Artistic Merit (1993), together with other distinctions.