In their gaze, the avant -garde and joint humanism, the bold plastic composition and will converge to reveal the world from below: peasants, sailors. Jose Suarez, born in Allaris (Ourens) in 1902 and died in Guarda (Pontevedra) in 1974, took a picture of Niñodaguia and Las Rías Baixas, the post -war Japan and Gauchios of the Pampa, the indigenous peoples of South Africa or Bull in 60 and even with Akayli. The Royal Academy of Bela Arts will celebrate its figure “The Most International Galician Photographer”, April 1, Galegas Arts Day.
If the accidental existence and formidable work with the image of Jose Suarez survived the twentieth -century convulsions, thanks to his nephew, photographer Xosé Luís Suárez Canal (Alllariz, 1946). This was the one who in the 70s plunged into the “dislocation” of the archive, with which Sunaria returned to Galicia after more than 20 years of exile. There he found the negatives of his series, possibly more finished, MarignyerosMade in 1936 in Morrazo (Pontentra), and in search of a place for a documentary film of the same name. This exceeds exile and that some reviews of the period associated with Aran men De Flartorty disappeared and became a trial stone of the alternative story of Galician cinema, which would have founded with another film absorbed in events and only partially preserved: Galicia (1936), Carlos led. The first attempts of the Nenpictic Galician cinema, established by the artist and intellectual Luan, were also expelled.
Suarez will follow the path of celluloid. She devoted herself professionally between 1937 and 1942 in Argentina until he recalls her nephew: “He is fed up with a lodge of films.” Then he moved to Punta -Teste, in Uruguay, where he opened a small bookstore in his house, Yelmo de Mambrino, and contacted some of those who will be his friends until the end of his days: the poet Raphael Alberti, the actress Carmen Anton, who was part of Lorca Barrak, or her husband and the victim. The material existence of exiles was not easier, and in the Suder even their descendants do not know exactly that he lived: yes, he made photojournalism for Press Buenos -Aires or Uruguayan DayThey sold books or even Esparto carpets, which were imported from Spain and were fashionable in America. And what he traveled: his first trip to Japan, where he remained for two years, was as a press correspondent.
The East will return to the East in 1960. It was then that he will meet with the director Akira Kurosava, with whom he will work on a certain friendship, and then threw one of his many masterpieces, Unconducted sleep in the worldA Thriller Business politician inspired HamletThe image gathered in Japan, with a more photojournalist section than a documentary, according to the Suarez channel, process only lyricism and does not avoid a certain enthusiastic hobby. This was another Jose Suarez, different from the one who in the 30s accepted experiments and methods of new objectivity or new vision and applied them to agrarian and naval society on the periphery of Western Europe.
An example of Rodchenko, Patssha or Einnstein
“Suarez is a fundamental figure in photography not only Galich net grain, alleros or pilgrimage of San Vitoiro -e -e -de -Brollon (Lugo)) or MarignyerosIn the 30s, they show that he knew the most advantage -card resources and used them, ”he adds. Fragmentation, diagonal composition, contract kinematographic photography. For example, his image never looks at the camera. ”
His contact with the new objectivity, which Albert Renge -Patssh expressed in photographs with the study of unusual personnel, or with a new vision in which Soviet Alexander Rodchenko stood out, occurred in Salamanca, where Suarez studied on the right and where his father’s gift chamber was taken when he graduated from high school in Wir. In Salamanca, he made friends with Miguel de Unamuno and approaches Western magazineIn addition to photographing the city and landscape around. Just a few years later, in the middle of the republic, he organizes his first exhibitions, in the circle of fine arts in Madrid or in the National Department of the ESP.
“Suarez is unique even in the context of the state,” Sendan insists, “in his photographs there are thoughts about what he is doing. He represents the concept of the author, as understands modernity. ” This expert distinguishes him from what he calls the Galician historical photography Arquivo Pacheco, Virxilio or Manuel Ferrol. “These are people who decide orders intuitively. And sometimes, as in the case of Virxilio, creates genuine masterpieces. But the photographer with the awareness of his work and knowledge about the avant -garde -theorii is only Suarez, ”he says. This is in December 1936, and perhaps it was pushed by his circle of friendship, in which there were republican meanings – he armed himself to the Federation of School Universities – such as writers Jose Beramin or Benjamin Yarney or a doctor and scientist Pio del Hortega, he was expelled to Argentina. His wife, Maria Mary Mirat, does not accompany him.
He returned to Galicia in 1959 against the opinions of some of his companions in Buenos -Aires – Galleguistas Nuñez bough, Seoane, Lois Tobío – who warned him that this was not a good time. But his mother was sick, and he wanted to take care of her. He retained the Argentine nationality, says his nephew, “from the fear that Franco will accept repression. But this return was his big mistake. ” He gave him time to register some of his most famous episodes, such as La Mancha in 1965 – he did not find a way to publish it – or, by order of the English editorial article, which is dedicated to the fight against bulls – “another of his hobbies,” says Sendan – or to introduce images The story of Galiza Ramon Otro Pedraio. But the consecration did not appear, Sendon holds, and a little small, the camera was parked. He committed suicide in Aguid on January 5, 1974.
After Mortem
Jose Suarez was just a different name in the long list of republican and Galician intellectual exiles, the author of some cult photographs – a child with a toy copy of Dorn, sailors under networks – but something forgotten. Before his nephew, who took him for a while in the 70s – “I was in France for training, and he told me not to return that I stayed there” – he plunged into a dirty file with which he returned from exile. Ten years later, in 1984, Joan Fontcubert (Barcelona, 1955) included him in her monumental exhibition Idas and chaos. Photo avant -garde in Spain 1920–1945Organized in the National Library of Madrid, and then went to the International Center for Photography (ICP) in New York. “Since then,” the Channel of Suarez admits, “steps into the history of the photographic history of the Spanish state.”
The last great sample of his work in Galicia, perhaps his most complete retrospective, was in 2015, when he ordered the Suarez and Manuel Sendan channel Jose Suarez: Do not live, who think (Jose Suarez: Living eyes who think) The ITINEROSAS exhibition in Madrid, Buenos -Aires and Montevideo, the epicenters of their vital adventures, and then to India, Japan or France. The catalog obtained as a result, today outside the market, is the most complete collection of its photographs. Sendan hopes that thanks to the celebration promoted by the Royal Academy Galega Bela Arts, there may be a reprint. And in Allarise, the Suarez channel works with the city council to open a small “charming” museum, with objects, letters and some photographs, “a tour of what remains of it”.
