Joaquín Tusquets de Cabirol

A rediscovered photographic treasure

The work of Tusquets de Cabirol has been totally unknown until the spring of 2020, when, in the middle of the pandemic, the author’s children discover in the press that a good part of their father’s negatives have mysteriously appeared in a garbage container in Palma de Mallorca. Due to the number of snapshots that portray the Barcelona coast and port, the Barcelona Maritime Museum is quick to purchase them to preserve them.

Meanwhile, Enrique Tusquets Gras, his father’s assistant in the home laboratory and his companion on photographic excursions, opens the boxes of photographs that the family kept in home and rediscovers more than 800 extraordinary positive prints, most of them 30×40 in size. These delicate copies, very well preserved, are the most valuable legacy of this newly discovered author.

Joaquín Tusquets de Cabirol made his own prints, mastering the developing technique and interpreting each one of them with great care and authorial intention. The quality of the images, the richness of the developments, their modern expressiveness and sensitivity to details and lights make this background a unique legacy.

Tusquets regularly travels, and especially on weekends, the streets of post-war Barcelona, ​​portraying the people, the trades and the growing activity of the port. He also makes excursions through towns in Catalonia, portraying buildings, rural landscapes and their inhabitants. In addition, many family photographs and self-portraits are found in these boxes, very innovative for the time. He has been associated with the Photographic Group of Catalonia for thirty years, as an amateur photographer, presenting his work in several national competitions that regularly recognize his artistic and poetic value.

Joaquín Tusquets de Cabirol was a Barcelonan with a passion for photography who worked as a chemical expert and owned an industrial chemistry factory. His wealthy position, and also a great creative vocation, led him to prolific photographic production. He dedicated intense hours of his free time to portraying the daily life that surrounded him. Tusquets is part of a generation of passionate amateur photographers who live the painful reality of a country torn apart by war. […] Tusquets’ photography is governed by the guidelines of the time, which value a “friendly” theme, classic composition, and careful technique. Amateurs like him encourage and promote photographic culture, organizing contests, lecture series, exhibitions, artistic technical training and photographic excursions, among other activities. Biographical extract from the Barcelona Maritime Museum.

Investigation of a photographic archive

There is no doubt, exploring his background, that Tusquets had great respect for his photographic work, that he greatly valued being able to interpret his time through his portraits, and being an exceptional testimony of the social and cultural context of the city.

Rarely a legacy of this quality come to light, the result of a time when cameras were in the hands of a few privileged or few professionals. Each original photograph in this collection is a key piece to recompose the vision and creative journey of a great author to be discovered, configuring a rare historical document from the 40s and 50s, very well preserved.

Currently, at Photographic Social Vision, we are working to preserve and spread this archive, initially by preparing an inventory of the positive copies and recording all the data contained in the author’s annotations that very precisely contextualize the photographs. We are also working on collecting data from the oral memory of his relatives and preparing a story about the author and his extraordinary work.

As a result of the work of our Foundation, some of the author’s original copies are now part of the MNAC Photography Collection, acquired by the National Photography Plan of the Generalitat of Catalonia, which recognizes the value and relevance of this photographic treasure.