Toni Catany

TONI CATANY (Lluchmayor, Balearic Islands, 1942 - Barcelona, 2013).
"Natura morta".
Photograph.
With photographer's dry stamp on the back.
Measurements: 30,5 x 20,5 cm.(photograph); 40 x 29,5 cm.(passpartout).

Toni Catany is a reference figure in the world of Spanish photography thanks to his pictorialist images in which classic themes such as still life, nudes and urban landscapes predominate. Catany held more than a hundred solo exhibitions, published numerous books and, among other awards, received the title of Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters, awarded by the French Ministry of Culture (1991), and the National Photography Prize, awarded by the Ministry of Education and Culture in 2001.

Self-taught, he arrived in Barcelona in 1960 to begin his studies in Chemical Sciences. There he began his career as a photographer doing travel reports. However, from the very beginning, he opted for themes far removed from photojournalism, and in 1972 he held his first exhibition. In 1979 he became internationally known with a photographic work on still lifes, for which he used the old calotype technique, created by William Fox Talbot in 1839. Using this method he worked on his favorite genres: still life, portrait, nude and landscape. A tireless researcher of different photographic techniques, Toni Catany made use of 19th century procedures, such as the aforementioned calotype, heliogravure or platinum-palladium carbon printing, together with other more modern techniques, such as transported polaroid. In his later years, he used a digital camera.