XIII edition of the Xavier Miserachs Photography Biennial: first retrospective on Lee Miller and Jacques Léonard exhibition

From August 4th to October 13th, the XIII edition of the Xavier Miserachs Photography Biennial will be held in Palafrugell (Baix Empordà, Girona). The Biennale, one of the oldest photography festivals in Catalonia, pays tribute to Xavier Miserachs and his generation, and works with the aim of bringing photography closer to the general public.

The XIII Xavier Miserachs Photography Biennial organizes 10 exhibitions spread over different spaces in Palafrugell, and for the first time, 1 exhibition at the Torre de Guaita de Sant Sebastià, in Llafranc. In addition, it has a program of complementary activities open to everyone, as well as guided tours for the general public and for schools and institutes - the latter from September.

This year's edition will have exhibitions at the Museu del Suro de Catalunya, at the cultural space La Bòbila, at the Municipal Theater of Palafrugell, at the Josep Pla Foundation, at the Vila Casas Foundation. Can Mario, at the Public Library, at the Nollegiu Mediterrània Bookstore, and adds, for the first time, the Watchtower and Interpretation Center of the Sant Sebastià Lighthouse in Llafranc, and the Palafrugell Meat Market.

The aim of the Biennale is to publicize the work of great figures in the history of national and international photography, as well as to support the work of young photographers. In addition, in each edition he discovers an unknown photographic archive of the region, almost always amateur, which has often unknowingly documented the country's recent history. This edition has the collaboration of the Palafrugell Town Council, the Banc Sabadell Foundation, the Generalitat de Catalunya and the Diputació de Girona.

Major retrospective dedicated to Lee Miller, the first female war correspondent

The XIII Biennial of Photography Xavier Miserachs curates and produces, in collaboration with Lee Miller Archives, the first major retrospective of Lee Miller in Catalonia. The exhibition, entitled The desire for freedom, takes a journey through more than 60 images through each of the areas that Lee Miller, one of the essential photographers of the 20th century, tackled: fashion, surrealism, portraiture and war .

The exhibition has a special impact on the field of war, due to its testimonial and historical relevance, as well as the privileged look it gives in its work to women in general and to those who participated in the conflict in particular.

© Lee Miller Archives, Anglaterra 2024. Tots els drets reservats. www.leemiller.co.uk. Vestit dissenyat per Peter Russell. Vogue Studio, Londres, Anglaterra, 1943

Lee Miller (Poughkeepsie, New York, 1907 - Chiddingly, UK, 1977) was a model and fashion photographer, surrealist photographer, correspondent and war photojournalist, and her life became a constant search and exercise of freedom that they have become a vital and professionally fascinating personality.

She posed for important photographers, lived and learned with the representatives of the most avant-garde European intellectual and artistic currents, such as Man Ray, André Breton, Jean Cocteau, Paul Éluard, Dalí or Picasso, and became one of the first women photographers and war correspondents who documented, among other war episodes, the bombing of London by the Nazi army, the Normandy landings and the liberation of the Buchenwald and Dachau concentration camps.

A pioneer, precocious and creative, with an important background of technical and artistic knowledge, she imprinted on all her work a personal stamp of great expressive power and original composition.

The desire for freedom can be seen at La Bòbila (C. Garriga, 24. Palafrugell), a former black cork factory with the oldest ovens in Spain, today converted into a cultural centre.

Jacques Léonard and the unpublished photos of boys and girls playing and reading in the street

The Biennale also announces Petites lectures, by photographer Jacques Léonard, an exhibition of photographs that capture the day-to-day life of boys and girls in the streets of Barcelona in the 1960s. With a look that brings it closer to documentary and humanistic photography, the exhibition includes a selection of photographs of scenes of children reading and playing, images never seen in Spain.

© Arxiu Família Jacques Léonard. Montjuïc. Barcelona, ca. 1960

Jacques Léonard (Paris, 1909 - l'Escala, 1994) was an unknown photographer until recently, despite the fact that his collection, currently deposited in the Historical Archive of l'Escala and represented by the Photographic Social Vision Foundation, contains a large number of vintage negatives and copies from the fifties and sixties that reveal a vitally and professionally very interesting figure.

Best known for his excellent portrait of the gypsy community in Barcelona, which he was able to make thanks to his marriage to Rosario Amaya, he is the author of an archive that covers various topics as a result of his work as a freelance photographer for different media and his own studio, dedicated to advertising photography.

Small readings, which can be seen in the most appropriate context, at the Nollegiu Mediterrània Bookstore (C. de la Tarongeta, 24-26. Palafrugell), is curated, produced and designed by the Xavier Miserachs Photography Biennial and the Nollegiu Mediterrània Bookstore .