Carlos Pérez Siquier

CARLOS PÉREZ SIQUIER (Almería, 1930–2021).
“Roquetas de Mar,” 1973.
From the series “La playa.”
Giclée print made in 2013 from the original negative.
Inkjet print on Hahnemühle baryta paper.
Signed, dated, and titled on the reverse.
Edition of 65 copies, printed at Taller AlSur in September 2013.
Certificate from the publisher included.
Measurements: 27 × 27 cm (image); 39.5 × 33 cm (paper).

“Roquetas de Mar” is part of “La playa,” one of Carlos Pérez Siquier’s essential series and one of the pioneering collections of Spanish color photography. Begun during the tourism boom of the 1970s, the series departs from the idealized image disseminated by official propaganda and observes the new habits of Mediterranean leisure with humor, formal freedom, and pop sensibility. Another print of this photograph, also dated 1973, is part of the collection of the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía.

The framing focuses the image on the interplay between the red cap, the damp skin, and the blue expanse of the sea. The close viewpoint and the intense chromatic contrast transform an everyday scene into an almost abstract composition, in which the body becomes volume, texture, and color. This focus on the fragment and on unexpected hallmarks is one of the most recognizable features of the photographer’s mature work.

Pérez Siquier was a pivotal figure in the renewal of Spanish photography. As co-founder, alongside José María Artero, of the magazine and the AFAL group, he helped move beyond the dominant pictorialism and was one of the first Spanish artists to adopt color as an autonomous artistic language. He received the National Photography Prize in 2003, and his work is represented in the Reina Sofía Museum, the MAPFRE Foundation, and the Andalusian Center for Photography.