The Centelles’ Archive: the history of a suitcase and its contents

Abstract

The photojournalist Agustí Centelles (1909-1985) has been the focus of extraordinary attention since 2009 when his heirs sold the archive to the Spanish Ministry of Culture. At that time, the controversy surrounding the sale overshadowed the content of the suitcase that contained the negatives that the photographer took with him into exile in 1939. This article approaches the Centelles Archive from different angles: the history of the object itself, the questions that have arisen over Centelles’ authorship, the organisation of the archive and the recently revealed documents that in conjunction with the archive provide a photographic analysis of the Second Spanish Republic and the Spanish Civil War.

Keywords: Agustí Centelles, photograpy, photojournalism, archive, Spanish Civil War, Second Spanish Republic.