Leopoldo Pomés’s Barcelona

Photograph by Leopoldo Pomés, Barcelona in the 1950s

For those who remember the Barcelona of the 1950s, and for those who never knew it, like me, Fotocolectania has given its space over to Leopoldo Pomés, photographer, creative, film-maker and writer, and a lover of artistic expression. The exhibition brings together around 80 snapshots from 1957, in which he captures his vision of Barcelona. A Barcelona somewhere between Català-Roca and Miserachs.

I was lucky enough to have the foundation’s curator, Juan Manuel Bonet, talk us through the exhibition in person.

The photographic project came about when Carlos Barral, of the publisher Seix Barral, commissioned Pomés to do a book of photographs of Barcelona. Pomés took up the idea with great enthusiasm and built up a fine collection of photos of the Barcelona of the time. Although Barral liked the photographs, the project didn’t win over his business partner, who saw in them a sad, decaying Barcelona.

More than half a century later, thanks to Fotocolectania, this work, which a 25-year-old Pomés carried out with passion, has finally seen the light of day, and it is now very highly rated by leading photography critics.

A book of the exhibition has also been published, which you can buy both at the foundation itself and in other Barcelona bookshops.

The order of both the exhibition and the book isn’t random: it was carefully thought out by the curator and later fine-tuned by Leopoldo Pomés. Apart from the fact that I personally think it’s fantastic, the photograph by Pomés that I’ve chosen to head this post was the one first chosen to advertise the exhibition.

Here are a couple of little anecdotes worth mentioning. The first is that the lady on the cover of the book saw herself in the posters for the exhibition and came along to mention it, and they gave her a copy of her photo. The second is that a young man who appears in the exhibition was recognised by his workmates, who asked for a copy to give him as a surprise for his anniversary.

There’s still time to visit this excellent exhibition, which has less than a month left to run.