LEOPOLDO POMÉS

“After it all”

Leopoldo Pomés (Barcelona, 1931 – Girona, 2019)

Leopoldo Pomés is a renowned photographer whose photographs have been seen in numerous exhibitions held throughout his lifetime. Many people surely think they know him well, but they may not have discovered certain characteristic and insistent, bordering on obsessive, traits in his work.

Directing the viewer’s attention to these “obsessions” or peculiarities is one of the aims of this exhibit which invites you to approach Pomés from another perspective and to view his images in a different light.

With this in mind, we have selected unpublished images which, in addition to other well-known photographs, better illustrate this new vision in our opinion.

The photographs are presented in various formats, with a focus on smaller images. We have prioritised these prints to highlight the paper on which they were developed at the time.

We believe that this enriches the image creation process by highlighting the value of a tangible object, one that is sensitive to the passage of time with the ability to transport us to the moment when the work was created.

STARTING POINT
Full of restlessness and stimulated by his contact with the Dau al Set artists and other intellectuals, in 1955, Leopoldo Pomés exhibited his first photographic work in the Galerías Layetanas. Lauded by some and criticized by others, these photographs that Alexandre Cirici Pellicer called “melanographs” caused a sizable impact on the photography environment of the time.

Encouraged by being recognized as an artist, Pomés continued his search for the mysteries of photography and his work progressively distilled certain almost obsessive tendencies that accompanied him throughout his life.

SHADOWLESS
The discovery of light without shadows

Around 1956-1957, he became fascinated by the stark images of shadows.

From the dark tone of his previous photographs he went on to explore the secrets of white light which does not cast shadows.

When the day rose with the sky completely covered by white clouds, the young Pomés rushed to the street or to nature to behold in awe as absolutely everything – people, objects, buildings, trees, entire landscapes – was devoid of shadows. It was then that he snapped his shots in a sort of frenzy, as if fearing that the sun would rise and undo the spell at any moment.

He tried to reproduce this magical state of light in his studio, but no focus or photography resources at the time could help him to achieve this. He then hired a carpenter and an electrician to build large panels for him filled with fluorescent tubes side by side. He had them hung from the ceiling so that, using an ingenious pulley system, he could move them based on his needs. Seeing that gadget, some people laughed snidely. He simply smiled, satisfied. He had found a way to make shadows disappear. He was able to capture the purest, nearly surreal essence of people and objects, just as he wanted to see them. This took place in 1960.

Seeking perfection in shadowless light, he also applied this technique to advertising. He wanted to obtain not only formal purity from the images, but also an ethereal sensation, an illusion of escape from the real world, so grey and muddled at that time.

SHAPES AND SPACES
Although he was perhaps not aware of it at first, his photographic gaze was always accompanied by a graphic tendency and a taste for shapes and spaces. His eyes sought them avidly, regardless of what was in front of him, and he arranged them in his own way just like a graphic artist puts graphic elements together within a certain space.

WINDOWS AND BLACK HOLES
Pomés had an irresistible attraction to windows and black holes.
“What’s behind them?” he asked himself with constant unease.
He was right. Enigmatic photographs offer an infinite field of imagination.
Once again, Pomés was trying to capture the mystery.
And he repeated once again: “A photograph is good when thinking about it doesn’t stop at what’s visible.”

WOMEN
Pomés had a special veneration for women. He saw a unique power in them. He admired them. Through his photographs, he always tried to uncover and reflect the essence of what made them different from men.

From the beginning, photographing women was one of the main leitmotifs of his journey.

When he approached a physique that seemed wondrous to him with his camera, he never left out what he could express emotionally in addition to beauty.

During the time he was alive, Pomés had the opportunity to witness and closely follow women’s progress. As a young man – in the dark years of the forties and fifties – he was very aware of how women suffered from being sidelined. He was attracted to women who struggled to escape established social conventions, brave women who he always supported.

A weakness: shoes
Since childhood, and throughout his life, Pomés was irrevocably attracted to high-heeled shoes, that sort of pedestal that confers a strange and subliminal power.

As objects, Leopoldo Pomés gave them an “architectural” value that meant that he always had four or five pairs on display in his studio along with books, paintings, and photos so as not to stop marvelling at the thought of these subtle and malevolent sculptures. He always remembered to replace them from time to time with others from his considerable collection.

LANDSCAPES
Many of his landscape photographs were not sought out; they were found. He said “they were thrust upon him” and he had to take a shot.

He hardly ever looked for them. He took a shot only when he was captivated by a natural environment’s light or by the intangible emotion that it emanated, as if he wanted to appropriate the mystery of the moment. In fact, he portrayed atmospheres.

As a teenager, Pomés learned how to look at people from his father.

They used to sit at bar terraces on busy streets to gaze for long periods of time at the people passing by. His father taught him to observe the expressions of the passers-by, their ways of being and dressing.

They believed that no other spectacle could be compared to observing and guessing about the lives of the anonymous individuals they might not ever see again.

As a photographer, this exercise in observation was the origin of his infinite interest and empathy for human beings. He wanted to explore people and capture their essence or mindsets, whether tenderness, severity, joy, vanity, anguish, or any other feeling reflected in each individual’s attitude.

Perhaps for this reason, as a young man, he didn’t seem to consider a landscape without human elements. From this perspective, he photographed the urban landscapes of Barcelona in 1957, commissioned by a well-known publisher (Seix Barral). Unfortunately, his work was rejected for failing to show the city’s notable parks, gardens, and monuments. The photographs remained dormant in a box until they were exhibited at the Foto Colectania Foundation in 2012 and published in the book Barcelona 1957.

In his later years, Leopoldo Pomés was attracted to landscapes for their own sake. The tendency towards low light grew in him, dim, yet vibrant in its ephemeral moment.

Twilight affected him almost distressingly because of its indifference to human existence. And for its daily announcement of an ending.