Joan Andreu Puig Farran. A Decade of Turmoil (1929-1939)

An active photographer in 1930s Catalonia, Joan Andreu Puig Farran (Lleida, 1904 – Barcelona, 1982) never had the opportunity to exhibit his work, although his photographs were published in magazines and newspapers. From 1929 onwards, he worked as a press photographer for several Catalan newspapers (La Humanitat, Esplai, El Matí, L’Opinió, and La Vanguardia). Following the outbreak of the war, he moved to the fronts in Aragon and Mallorca. At the end of the conflict, he went into exile in France. He returned to Barcelona in 1945 but was no longer able to work as a photojournalist and was forced to devote himself to advertising and tourism photography. He then worked for brands such as Codorníu and Gallina Blanca, and it was during this time that, together with his friend Antoni Campañà, he created the well-known postcard label CYP.

Joan Andreu Puig Farran: A Decade of Turmoil (1929-1939) recovers the work of this photojournalist during a period of intense social and political upheaval: the years leading up to the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War and its course through 1939. This is accomplished thanks to numerous vintage prints preserved in the La Vanguardia archive, complemented by exhibition prints made from the original glass plates preserved by his heirs, as well as a selection of the newspapers in which his images were published.

Curators: Arnau Gonzàlez Vilalta y Antoni Monné Campañà