Antoni Arissa (Sant Andreu 1900 – Barcelona 1980) started his career as a photographer in the early 1920s whilst still working as a technician in the family printing business. Although initially focussing on genre-type themes, he gradually developed his own dynamic, unadorned style, stripped of the Symbolist references so beloved of pictorialist photographers.
Arissa soon moved towards a new vision influenced by current developments in Central European photography, marked by a bold approach to composition, form, and line, and by the use of lighting to enhance the qualities and purpose of photographic objects. He was aided in this shift of emphasis by his professional skills as printer and publisher and by his thorough knowledge of typography. It was in this field that he found the ideal space for testing his visual tools in the quest for a personal, modern style of photography.
This exhibition comprises over 160 prints from negative collections held by Fundación Telefónica and the Institut d’Estudis Fotogràfics de Catalunya; it also includes some rare surviving prints made by Arissa himself. This first-ever retrospective of Antoni Arissa is the fruit of ongoing efforts by Fundación Telefónica to recover old photographic archives, a task that started with the Company’s own Archive.
