Ortiz Echagüe

The collection of photographs chosen for this exhibition offers the timeless image of Spain, where characters are dressed in work or festive dress, North Africans, landscapes or ruined castles are identified with perennial value. This is achieved with both technique and style: because of the prominent luminous contrasts that turn the characters into sculptures. This is evident in his numerous portraits of people, especially in the series of monks, where the use of iconography and compositions influenced by the Baroque is apparent, such as in the case of the Monje blanco, novicio del Cister (1945) and Monje cartujo (c. 1945), which are modelled off San Bruno (c. 1635) by Manuel Pereira and the paintings of Francisco de Zurbarán.

Motivated by a desire to capture it before it disappears, the reason and reality of the person and popular costume, Ortiz Echagüe creates "a unique work, articulated conceptually and technically developed around the idea of documenting a Spain that was in the process of vanishing", as indicated by Rafael Levenfeld and Valentín Vallhonrat, curators of the exhibition. Echagüe’s photographs range throughout the whole Peninsula and the north of Africa, systematising the peculiarities and differences of the nation from their clothes (especially those of women, to provide greater richness and variety) and landscapes.