2024-01-01 12:10:55
The photographer Isabel Steva Hernández, better known as Colita, died this Sunday afternoon in Barcelona at the age of 83 due to peritonitis, according to sources close to the artist. Colita was one of the most prominent Spanish photographers of the 20th century, an artist who captured the transformation of Barcelona during the Franco regime and the Transition with a renewed, vindictive and feminist look from the Barcelona “Gauche Divine”, which gave her access to many of the most prominent figures of the time.
In addition to immortalizing the different and very different spaces of the city, whether from high society or the marginal barrack neighborhoods, characters such as Gabriel García Márquez, Mario Vargas Llosa, Salvador Dalí, Joan Miró, Orson posed for Colita’s camera. Welles, Rafael Alberti, Ana María Matute, Carmen Amaya, Antonio Gades, Joan Manuel Serrat, Bella Dorita or the brothers Terenci and Ana María Moix, among many others.
The works of Isabel Steva are deposited in the Archivo Colita Fotografía, and also in the National Archives of Catalonia, the Municipal Archives of Barcelona, the Filmoteca de Catalunya or in museums such as the MACBA, the MNAC, the Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, the Vila Casas Foundation or the Brossa Foundation.
Isabel Steva, who owes her name Colita to the fact that her father told her that she had been born under a cabbage, was born in Barcelona on August 24, 1940, she studied until she was 17 at the Sacred Heart school and later moved to Paris to study French Civilization at the Sorbonne University, although his stay in the French capital would only last one year.
Upon returning to Barcelona, Colita, to whom her father had given cameras since she was 12, entered the professional world of photography with the help of prominent photographers Oriol Maspons, Francesc Català-Roca, Leopoldo Pomés and Xavier Miserachs, with whom she began to work as an assistant in 1961.
In 1962 he worked on the character file for the film “Los Tarantos”, by Rovira Beleta, where he became friends with its protagonist, the flamenco dancer Carmen Amaya. She became interested in flamenco art and moved to Madrid for a while, where she took promotional photographs of Antonio Gades and Micaela Flores, “La Chunga”.
The result of this time is the book “Luces y shadows del Flamenco” (Editorial Lumen, 1975) written by José Manuel Caballero Bonald and illustrated with Colita images of great artists of the genre: Mairena, La Piriñaca, La Perrata, La Fernanda and La Bernarda, Juan Talega, El Borrico, El Chozas, Donday and Carmen Amaya, a volume that had several expanded reissues.
He collaborated with the so-called Barcelona School, a movement that emerged with the ambition of making European and progressive cinema, as opposed to the “official” cinematography of Franco’s regime, which gave him the opportunity to work with directors of photography such as Luis Cuadrado, Juan Amorós or Fernando Arribas, in films such as “The exquisite corpse”, “Morbo” or “Los crueles”.
His first exhibition came in 1965, in which artists such as Argimón, Curós, Jordi Galì, Guinovart, Oriol Maspons, Ràfols Casamada, Tharrats and Román Vallès also participated.
She is considered the photographer of the so-called “Gauche Divine” of Barcelona, made up of a group of professionals, intellectuals and artists, who had their beginnings at dinners at the Casa de Mariona restaurant and reached their peak in 1967, coinciding with the opening of the establishment. Bocaccio.
With the collection of his portraits he organized the exhibition “La Gauche qui rit” (1971), at the Aixelà Gallery, sponsored by Boccaccio and the promoter Oriol Regàs, an exhibition that only lasted two days when it was closed by the police the day after the opening.
In these early years he also alternated with photography for the press and the record industry through Edigsa (1967) and the Catalan “La Nova Cançó” movement, carrying out press and promotional campaigns, album covers and posters, especially Guillermina Motta, Núria Feliu, Joan Manuel Serrat, La Trinca, Ovidi Montllor, Raimon or María del Mar Bonet.
In the death throes of Franco’s regime he collaborated with progressive press of the time, such as “Fotogramas”, “Tele-Expres”, “Mundo Diario” and “Destino”, years in which he left graphic testimony of events such as the Montserrat bull run and the death of Franco. or political demonstrations and in defense of freedom.
Her love of detective and mystery novels led Beatriz de Moura, director of Tusquets Editor, to entrust her with the “Serie Negra” collection, which she combined with directing the photography department of the magazine “Vindicación Feminista” until 1978.
During the Transition he collaborated with “Interviú”, “Reporter”, “Cuadernos para el dialogue”, “La Calle” or “Boccaccio”. He photographed his city, Barcelona, and its metropolitan area, evidencing its changes and evolution, and always reflecting the cultural and social life of Catalonia.
In his more than forty years of profession he held more than 40 exhibitions and published thirty books.
Among her many exhibitions are “La Pedrera”, “Identity Card”, “Confessions of a Diva”, “10 years on the stages of Catalonia”, “Colombia Vive” (1990), “Mary la Gran” (1994) -in tribute to the actress Mary Santpere-, “El Serrat de Colita” (1998), “Atlas Woman, conflict in Colombia” (2004), “Terenci del Nile. Sentimental trip to Egypt, 1973” (2005), “Carmen Amaya 1963. Photographs of Colita and Julio Ubiña” (2013) or “Portraits of a Friendship” (2014) -with everyday photos of the poet Jaime Gil de Biedma-.
In addition, together with the historian Mary Nash, she was in charge of research for the exhibition “Pioneer Photographers of Catalonia” (2005-2006).
Feminist and defender of women’s rights
Committed to the defense of women’s rights, two important retrospective exhibitions were held in the new millennium, in 2009 and 2014, the latter titled “Colita, por si!”.
On November 6, 2014, he was awarded the National Photography Prize, but the next day he rejected it, alleging that the Ministry of Culture, Education and Sports, which grants the award, was responsible for ensuring that culture and education in Spain were in a situation of “sorrow, shame and heartache.”
In 2016, the documentary film “Cola, Colita, Colassa (Ode to Barcelona)” was released, directed by Ventura Pons, about his figure and career.
In 1998 the Barcelona City Council awarded him the Medal for Artistic Merit, along with other photographers Oriol Maspons and Leopoldo Pomés.
Among many other distinctions, it also has the Creu de Sant Jordi 2004, one of the 2008 May Day Awards from the Campalans and Comaposada foundations, the Special Prize of the jury of the Terenci Moix Internationals (2011), the 2012 Medal for Promotion of Arts and Design FAD or the 2013 Piedad Isla Award from the Provincial Council of Palencia.
In 2015 he received the Bartolomé Ros Award, within the framework of the PhotoEspaña international photography festival and in 2021 the Council of Ministers awarded him the Gold Medal for Merit in Fine Arts.
Last November he received the Journalist’s Profession award, awarded to him by the Governing Board of the College of Journalists of Catalonia, in recognition of his professional career, his “indisputable contribution to culture and art” and also in April he had collected with “joy”, from the hands of the then Minister of Culture and Sports, Miquel Iceta, the Christa Leem award.
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