Pla-Narbona: Letters as partitions
“A chronicle and works by the draughtsman, engraver and sculptor Pla-Narbona” – with no reference to design – is the title of a publication that runs through Pla-Narbona’s career until 1974. As the same long title ran on it elaborated: “works from his beginnings to the present day, compiled, ordered, described and interpreted by Francesc...
Nueva Forma (New Form), architecture and modernity
Nueva Forma (New Form) was an architecture and art magazine that sought to modernise our culture and open out towards major international phenomena. Spanning across the 1960s and 1970s (1966–1975), it had the patronage of the Huarte family, promotors of a significant number of cultural initiatives that included the Pamplona Encounters in 1972 (see previous...
Santamarina, design for Asturias
In 2000 an exhibition was held at the Palacio de Revillagigedo, in the Principality of Asturias, in homage to five graphic designers from Catalonia who were pioneers in their profession and originators of the ADGFAD movement –Domènech, Huguet, Pedragosa, Pla-Narbona and Vellvé–. Its catalogue was signed by Elías+Santamarina. Elías and Santamarina started out together in 1972 in...
![Cruz Novillo “armed the Nativity” […in 1970]](https://graphicspioneers.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Det_CN_03.jpg "Cruz Novillo “armed the Nativity” […in 1970]")
Cruz Novillo “armed the Nativity” […in 1970]
The 1960s saw a generation of designers gestate to give new and regenerated momentum to drawing in the strictest sense. In 1965 Celestino Piatti published Celestino Piatti’s Animal ABC, which contained a concept of refined illustration that set trends and represented a benchmark for numerous draughtsmen and women, with its considerable success giving rise to...
Temas españoles (Spanish Matters): Verdú’s covers
The magazine Temas españoles (Spanish Matters) was an instrument for disseminating Francoist thought. The content between its covers enables us to gain an understanding of the ideas that evolved during the dictatorship via a selection of relevant issues and the construction of an idiosyncratic imaginary. The two-tone covers belonging to the first four hundred editions...
Bechtold, “Destino (Destination)” Barcelona
Erwin Bechtold arrived in Barcelona in 1950, although, as Ricard Giralt Miracle wrote in 1993, more than simply arriving in Barcelona, he disembarked in Filograf (see previous posts), the graphic arts studio where this pioneer would print his and his clients’ work. Bechtold and Giralt Miracle crossed paths in careers bound to print and typography,...
Catalogue of “Encounters” in Pamplona
In 1972, in the city of Pamplona, a number of artistic Encounters took place, which, when analysed with the perspective of the years that have passed, have taken on greater and greater importance. The Encounters were put forward with the objective that the audience should play a part in the artistic act without a particular...
Partierra’s Book Covers
As I focused on the mysterious figure of Joaquín Pertierra I discovered the legacy of a restless graphic artist who, while faithful to his era, also looked towards the future and whose work brought more question marks to the surface as I uncovered it. An illustrator by profession and both elusive and sporadic, he developed...
Before Penguin
Edicions Proa, founded in 1928 in Badalona at a time of popular culture and athenaeums, is an exponent of the standard of Catalan publishing in the 1930s that came to the fore by way of an exhibition and the illustrated book: La propera festa del llibre serà de color taronja! Cinquanta anys del rellançament d’Edicions...
Pedro García-Ramos touring
“And, nevertheless, the ensemble in the exhibition shapes a structured organic whole that rounds off answers, covering up possible fissures, consolidating the experiment and demonstrating the maturity and assurance of an almost philosophical work of investigation. Work that has not materialised from good taste, or a job well done, nor from the chosen profession of...
Cruz Novillo and Producers
The first programme coordinated to unify printed and animated graphic art was used for Otto Preminger’s 1955 film The Man with the Golden Arm. The title sequence was designed by Saul Bass and featured an arm that traced the plot of the film: the drug addiction of its main character. The credits for the film...
Catalan activist design by Pilar Villuendas
“Looking over the images produced throughout these years goes above and beyond a possible analysis of their graphic values to become a statement of the small daily history of Barcelona.” Pilar Villuendas set up her studio in the mid 1970s. Looking through the designs compiled in this recently published book “Barcelona, Urban Iconography in Transition”,...