GABRIEL CUALLADÒ CANDEL
Massanasa (Valencia) 1925 - Madrid 2003

Cualladó began to take photographs with a Capta camera after the birth of his first son in 1951. He did not have an extensive, nor specific training, since due to the post-war context, he had to work from a very young age in the countryside, until 1941, when he moved to Madrid to join his uncle's transport company. He defined himself as an amateur photographer for most of his life, until an undetermined date between 1998 and 1999 he did not remove the adjective amateur from the letterhead of his letters; even after winning the first National Photography Prize awarded by the Ministry of Culture in 1994, he did not remove this adjective. 

The second half of the fifties were key in the development and participation of Cualladó in the Spanish photographic context, and in turn, these years were also very significant for Spanish photography, which was coined “new avant-garde” by Josep Maria Casademont. In 1956, Cualladó became a member of the Real Sociedad Fotográfica de Madrid, and in 1957 of AFAL (Agrupación Fotográfica Almeriense). He began to weave networks with photographers such as Ramón Masats, Rubio Camín, Francisco Ontañón, Francisco Gómez and Leonardo Cantero, with whom he formed the group La Palangana. And with other photographers from the Madrid context, such as Gerardo Vielba, Fernando Gordillo or Juan Dolcet, who were not officially part of the group, of that photograph taken by Ontañón in 1959 showing the portraits of the six original members. 

His work in the Spanish context, which took place among associations, groups or photographic salons, contrasted with his visibility and recognition at the international level. In 1960 he won the Popular Photography award with one of his photos of the wedding reportage of Ramón Masats and Montse Santamaría. In 1962 he won the gold medal at the International Salon of Photography Sandness (Norway) with his photograph Niña de la rosa (1959). That same year, 1962, he was one of the Spanish photographers chosen by the French government to make a photographic report on Paris. In 1966 he exhibited at Interpress-Photo in Moscow and at the World Exhibition of Photography in Cologne. 

Cualladó combined his photographic work, supporting photography as an editor, promoter, collector (he began collecting photography in 1979), and also as a writer, leaving traces of his vision in the magazines and bulletins of the different decades, especially in Arte Fotográfico, Afal, Cuadernos de la Fotografía, Boletín de la Real Sociedad Fotográfica de Madrid, etc.

His photography has an anthropological approach, Cualladó focused not only on the person portrayed, but in the context in which it was located: "I try to get the reflection of the personality of the portrayed. [...] Even though he is a technically solvent professional, few authentic portraits come out. Earlier we talked about La gitanilla (Sama de Langreo, Asturias, 1978), which for me is a successful portrait, despite being surrounded by that environment. We can say the same of Camarero en la boda de Penella (Madrid, 1966). In both cases, the whole environment of the figure is incorporated into the secret of the portrait". [...]".

During his career he mixed the production of reports on subjects or places he frequented, such as those entitled the Real Sociedad Fotográfica, El Rastro, Cervecería Alemana or the photographs taken during his vacations in Asturias. In the eighties and nineties, in addition to the one on Paris, there were numerous institutional commissions in Spain as a result of the institutionalization of photography. Thus, works such as L'Albufera. Visió tangencial (1985), Els paisatges de Joanot Martorell. Gandia i la Safor (1990), Imagina (1991), Una aproximación visual a la guitarra (1994-1995), ARCO-94 (1994) or Puntos de vista (1995). 

He always worked in black and white photography, which allowed him to do the development himself, except for the polaroid taken from the nineties onwards. Cualladó did not consider polaroid photographs as part of his work. For him they had a different status than his black and white photographs. They were a resource to experiment with color, since they allowed him to control the development without the need for a color laboratory process that he could not carry out.

In addition to being awarded the National Photography Prize (1994), in 1992 he received the ICI European Photography Award organized by the National Media Museum (England). In 1998, he was awarded the Gold Medal of the Circle of Fine Arts (Madrid), and in 2002, the Diputació de Valencia granted him the Alfons Roig Prize.

Bibliography

Garde Harce, Antonio: «Entrevista a Gabriel Cualladó». Nueva Revista, 29-XI-1997. https://www.nuevarevista.net/entrevista-gabriel-cuallado/

Sandra Moros, curator IVAM