2023-06-09 12:52:18
The Historical Archive of l’Escala has received 4452 restored negatives from the photographer’s collection Joan Slow. The collection contains 17,000 pieces, including glass plate negatives, plastic negatives and paper copies, mainly in black and white.
The City Council explained that coinciding with International Archives Week, from June 5 to 11, the Furniture Restoration Center has just returned part of the Lassús fund which he has been responsible for restoring.
The restoration has focused on the negatives in plastic support. 4,452 of the 17,000 pieces have been restored that make up the bottom, and that have been disinfected, cleaned and accommodated in the appropriate supports. “To guarantee the adequate protection of the negatives in plastic support, various measures have been taken such as the use of an interleaved barrier paper that acts as protection against moisture, dust and other pollutants” reported municipal sources. This barrier paper does not contain alkaline substances that can negatively affect the photographic material.
Long term storage
With this presentation and storage system, it is ensured that negatives in plastic are protected from external damage and kept in a safe environment for long-term preservation.
The already restored material will be preserved in the Historical Archive of l’Escala which has the facilities with the optimal climatic parameters for the conservation of the negatives (both temperature and humidity).
Notebooks, notes and photographs
In addition to the negatives and copies, the fund also contains other documentary materials such as notebooks, explanations of the types of solutions used, notes on envelopes and notebooks with account statements, among others.
Joan Lassús (1901-1996) was an outstanding documentary filmmaker from L’Escala during the 20th century, who knew how to combine two of his passions into a hobby and a profession: photography and music.
Joan Lassús acquired his first camera, a box Kodak, from the photographer Josep Esquirol (1874-1931) before his death. However, he discovered that this camera was very primitive. In 1935, he bought his second camera, a 6×9 format plate camera with a Tessar Zeiss lens. This new camera allowed him to create more elaborate compositions and was the one with which he captured his most recognized photographs during the decades of the 1930s and 1940s.
A fund deposited in the archive
His work evolved from the impressionistic romanticism of the 1950s to the documentaryism of the 1960s and 1970s. He abandoned the previous expressiveness to give way to a serene and silent beauty.
After his death in 1996, his heir Magda Fortuny deposited in the Historical Archive of l’Escala the photographic collection of Joan Lassús, which consists of more than 17,000 pieces. These pieces include glass plate negatives, plastic negatives and paper copies, mainly in black and white.
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