Schedule:
Tuesday to Friday: 5pm to 8pm
Saturday: 11am to 2pm - 5pm to 8pm
Sunday: 11am to 2pm
Monday: closed
The idea behind the exhibition Anonymous was not only to present a compilation of images of people in the 1940s, it was also to showcase a particular style of photography. Functional, unsophisticated and known as “minute photography”, the shots were taken outdoors and capture the spontaneity of their subjects very well. The faces, which are deliberately those of anonymous people, openly reveal their emotions; feelings of, on one hand, disappointment, sadness, complacence and shyness, and on the other, expressions of hope, bravery and determination. The subjects were from all the various social classes of a country town in the post-war period. The spontaneous backgrounds, the people’s clothing and their unselfconscious poses and movements all mean that these half-length portraits, shot in the street, are ethnological documents of great interest. Apparently the photographer had been commissioned by the authorities to take these photographs for the purpose of identifying everyone living in the town. It goes without saying that, in addition to the photos’ aforementioned qualities, the 70 years that have passed since these images were taken have made them more attractive. Neither the location (probably Ulldecona and Freginals) nor the names of the people are important for the purposes of this exhibition, which merely seeks to show the sincere connection between the photographer and his photographic subject.
Joan Sorlí Castell was, early on in his life, a post-war photographer at a local level. Originally from Ulldecona, he did what many photographers did at that time; he wandered the nearby towns during their annual festivals and other celebrations and took photographs of any passers-by who might want portraits of themselves (or not). Despite the fact that he entered the world of photography by chance, as an amateur, he soon learned more about the subject when he began working for a photographic company in Barcelona. On returning to Ulldecona he set up as the town’s first professional photographer, with his own studio. However, his business did not thrive and he soon left, this time definitively, for England, where he spent the rest of his life working in the world of photography. But his pioneering work, albeit fleeting, left its mark and was by no means fruitless – his portraits led to the growth of a tradition, and from 1950 to 1990 many of Ulldecona’s leading photographers learnt from Sorlí’s earlier efforts. And he also bequeathed us with a by-no-means negligible legacy which for years was believed to have disappeared.
Cycle: Exhibition: Anonymous. "Retrats de 1940"
Organized by: L’Arxiu Comarcal del Baix Ebre, la Residència d’Investigadors del CSIC-Generalitat de Catalunya i l’Associació Cultural Fotoconnexió.
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