(1922-1998)

The pioneer of Spanish architectural photography died in Barcelona at 75, leaving more than 300,000 negatives and prints which illustrate the extraordinary sharpness of his eye and document the history of several decades. Born in Valls, Tarragona in 1922, he began his career helping his father, the prestigious portrait photographer and pioneer of publicity photography Pere Catalá Pic, who also put him in contact with the Catalan avant-garde. His clinical eye and plastic talent allowed him to cover all genre, from documentary photography to portrait shots, passing through architecture. The works created by GATCPAC and Group R would not have stood the test of time taken through another camera. Awarded with the National Prize for the Plastic Arts in 1983, Catalá Roca defended his ‘achromatic generation’ and black and white photography, (saying “It is like Latin to living languages,”) although he used colour in several series like his shots of New York. In 1951 he made his first sortie into cinema with the documentary The Ciudad Condal (Barcelona) in Autumn, later making others on the artists Miró and Chillida.