Wednesday, July 15, 2020

Spanish Photographers / Ramón Masats

Moral de Calatrava

Spanish Photographers

Ramón Masats

Behind the bullfighters: Ramón Masats' unflinching look at 1950s Spain – in pictures

‘Masats, a man of few words, phlegmatic and stubborn in his convictions, coherent in his eye-heart connection, created a photographic legacy that is essential to understanding the development of graphic reporting in Spain.’

Casa de Campo, Madrid, 1959

‘Masats was determined to interpret the tourist cliches from a local vantage point. Silent irony to counter the censors.’

Mercado de San Antonio, Barcelona, 1955

San Antonio Market

‘Masats worked on assignments for Mundo Hispánico, Gaceta Ilustrada and the new Ministry of Information and Tourism. He poured all his photographic intensity into investigating what he called his homeland’s cultural cliches, such as popular rites and festivals, religious or folkloric. It was a different way of telling a story.’

Cádiz, 1963

‘The political regime’s secrecy and international obstinacy nurtured a view of Spain from the outside as an exotic country in thrall to a dictatorship where tourists would find exuberant landscapes brimming with Gypsies and bandits, bulls and bullfighters, guitarists and flamenco dancers, beaches and historical monuments under the sun at rock-bottom prices.’

Exportur, Madrid, 1965

‘Halfway through the 1950s, Ramón appeared in Madrid. He came from his birthplace, Catalonia, to carve a niche for himself as a professional photographer.’

Subasta benéfica. Bobby Deglané, Madrid, 1960

Charitable Audicion / Bobby Deglané in the Foreground

‘Travelling around a bleak, drooping Spain in the 50s was both a challenge and an opportunity for photography. The official tourist propaganda glorified the monumental stone structures while ignoring the common folk, and reporting, the new language to tell what the world was like, chose the human figure as the essential core of the story.’

Duke of Windsor, Party in Antonio el Bailarín’s House, Madrid, 1961 ‘In the second half of the 50s and throughout the 60s, a spirit of openness flourished in Spain, tentatively at first, unstoppably later, unleashed by the influence of tourism and the urgent need to emerge from the isolation of the Franco dictatorship, which had a political, social and economic stranglehold on the country.’

Duke of Windsor
Partyu in Antonio el Bailarín's House
Madrid, 1961

‘In the second half of the 50s and throughout the 60s, a spirit of openness flourished in Spain, tentatively at first, unstoppably later, unleashed by the influence of tourism and the urgent need to emerge from the isolation of the Franco dictatorship, which had a political, social and economic stranglehold on the country.’

Neutral Corner II, Madrid, 1962

Sanfermines, Pamplona, 1960

Tomelloso, Ciudad Real, 1960

‘His pictures portray a country trapped in poverty, socially stratified and staunch in its spiritual bondage – under a happy-go-lucky, perpetual celebratory escapism.’

Arcos de la Frontera, Cádiz, 1962

‘This ushered in a period that years later would be known as humanistic photography, the perfect chance to get a personal picture of an unknown Spain.’

Jerez de la Frontera, Cádiz, 1963

Grape Harvest

‘This exhibition captures scenes from that time through the ironic, carefree, direct eye of the photographer.’

Cursillos de cristiandad, Toledo, 1957

Courses in Christianity

‘The title of this exhibition, Visit Spain, was the first advertising slogan used by the Ministry of Information and Tourism to attract European visitors.’

Visita del presidente Eisenhower, Madrid, 1959
Visit by President Eisenhower

Chema Conesa, curator of the exhibition, says: ‘Ramón Masats’ work dovetails with the end of the autarchy of the Franco regime and new policy of openness, which the photographer captured with a dynamic, unflinching language.’