Antoni Campañà

Arbúcies, 1906 – Sant Cugat del Vallès, 1989

grupo autores

Antoni Campañà’s extensive career positions him as one of the most important Catalan photographers of the 20th century. First achieving international renown in the 1930s, he was a pictorial artist, portraitist, camera salesman, developing expert in a series of successful businesses, and photojournalist.

Son and grandson of building contractors, Antoni Campañà seemed destined to continue the family business. But though he studied business, it was his passion for photography that ultimately became his life. He first discovered the technique under the photographer Joaquim Garriga, who took him on as a summer employee at his business when he was twelve years old.

From 1922 on, Campañà worked at the Cosmos company and began to travel in Barcelona’s artistic photography circles. In 1928, he joined the Agrupació Fotogràfica de Catalunya [Catalonia Photography Association or AFC]. He participated in competitions and festivals, winning several prizes, including some international ones.

The year 1933 proved decisive. That year, he married Maria Capella, with whom he would have five children. During their honeymoon in Germany, he attended a course with the photographer Willy Zielke, an exponent of the New Objectivity. He also took Tracció de Sang [known as Horsepower in English], his best known and most award-winning photograph, and opened the Boada-Campañà. Agencia oficial Leica [Boada-Campañà: Official Leica dealers] shop on Calle Tallers. His artistic images were published in specialised magazines and art and photography supplements. Additionally, in the early 1930s, he began to collaborate sporadically with the El Día GráficoLa Vanguardia or Ahora newspapers with photographs of current affairs.

When the war broke out, he documented revolutionary and rearguard Barcelona from 1936 until 1937, when he was called up as a driver. Although he took thousands of photographs, he published very few: some in La Vanguardia and others in propagandistic media put out by the Confederación Nacional de Trabajo – Federación Anarquista Ibérica [National Confederation of Labour–Iberian Anarchist Federation, or CNT-FAI], such as postcards or books.

In 1939, he resumed his activity, and, in the 1940s, he opened his own shop, first on Rambla Catalunya, and later on Calle Pelai. Artistically, he continued to exhibit his work and win awards, including an honorary trophy from the Catalan Photography Association (AFC) (1946). In 1950, he was made an honorary member of the Fédération Internationale de l’Art Photographique [International Federation of Photographic Art], and, two years later, he won the Spanish Grand Prize for Photography.

He also worked in the press, in particular, as a sport photojournalist. His work appeared regularly in the weekly Vida Deportiva. Likewise of note was his link to the publication Dicen, which he co-founded in 1952 and where he worked until 1976. As for the general press, he published in the newspapers Arriba, Diario de Barcelona and El Correo Catalán, as well as in the weekly Destino. Special mention should be made of his contribution to La Vanguardia Española, which, on 11 June 1961, featured his work on its first colour cover. It was the start of an ongoing commission that would last into the 1970s.

In 1952, he founded the company Postal Color CYP with Joan Andreu Puig Farran. They travelled the entire Iberian coast, taking pictures that they then used to publish the first collection of colour postcards in Spain, in addition to calendars and books. Although the patriarch retired in 1976, his family continued his work. Maria Rosa worked at the shop, whilst Montserrat and Margarita took photographs, especially of ski competitions. His son Antoni (‘Campañà Junior’), who, from the age of twelve, had tagged along with his father, camera in hand, went on to found the newspaper Sport (1983) and worked as a photojournalist into the early 21st century.

Antoni Campañà Bandranas died in 1989. His legacy has recently been expanded thanks the trove of photographs he took during the war, which he had kept hidden during his lifetime: more than 5,000 negatives and positives stored in two boxes. The archive is managed by his estate, which, since 2019, has made this discovery public through two books and exhibitions, as well as a documentary.

Resources: 

Exposició en línia La guerra infinita. Antoni Campañà. Las tensiones de una mirada (1906-1989). MNAC

Documental Antoni Campañà. La caja roja

Bibliography:

Gili, Marta (1989). Antoni Campañà i Bandranas. Catàleg exposició. Barcelona: Fundació Caixa Barcelona.

Garcia-Planas, Plàcid; Gonzàlez, Arnau i Ramos, David (2019): La Capsa vermella: la Guerra Civil fotografiada per Antoni Campañà. Barcelona: Ed. Comanegra.

Gónzalez, Arnau (2021): L'endemà de la retirada. Barcelona: Ed. Comanegra.

Blanco Pérez, Manuel; González, Arnau. La Barcelona de la Guerra Civil española a través de la mirada de Antoni Campañà. Análisis fotográfico e histórico a Historia y Comunicación Social, núm. 25 (2020), p. 309-321.