The photographer Isabel Steva, better known as Colita, died this Sunday afternoon in Barcelona at the age of 83 from peritonitis, sources close to the artist have told EFE. A prominent figure in the field of photojournalism and the cultural life of Barcelona, she was the great portraitist of Bocaccio, the epicenter of the divine gauche but also of completely marginal environments, such as that of the gypsies in Somorrostro.
She came to photography with the help of a camera that her father gave her and she always defended having done what she wanted, even though her father had wanted her to be a pharmacist, as she explained in this interview two years ago. He was able to further develop his technique with renowned photographers such as Oriol Maspons, Francesc Català-Roca, Leopoldo Pomés and Xavier Miserachs, with whom he began to work in 1961.
Notable personalities passed through his gaze, including Gabriel García Márquez, Mario Vargas Llosa, Salvador Dalí, Joan Miró, Orson Welles, Rafael Alberti, Ana María Matute, Carmen Amaya, Antonio Gades, Joan Manuel Serrat, Bella Dorita and the Terenci Ana brothers Maria Moix.
Colita, photographer, in an archive photo.Vicens Giménez
The first of his 40 exhibitions sponsored by Bocaccio and Oriol Regàs barely lasted two days when it was closed by the police, an example of his social vision of photography and his ideology. She described herself as a “feminist and leftist” and portrayed events such as the bullfight in Montserrat, the death of Franco and political demonstrations in defense of freedom.
Because of this political activism, he refused to accept the National Photography Prize in 2014, arguing that the Ministry of Culture, Education and Sports, which awards the prize, was responsible for leaving culture and education in a “sad” situation in Spain “He had previously accepted the Creu de Sant Jordi, although he explained that this award, the highest award given by the Generalitat, was received as a result of the award by Pasqual Maragall and that he would have refused it even if it would have been presented to Pujol by Jordi. In 1998, the Barcelona City Council awarded him the Medal for Artistic Merit, together with his fellow photographers Oriol Maspons and Leopoldo Pomés.
Among many other awards, it has also received the First of May 2008 Award from the Campalans and Comaposada Foundations, the Special Jury Award from the Terenci Moix International Awards (2011), the Medal for the Promotion of Art and Design FAD 2012 or the Piedad Isla 2013 from the Provincial Council from Palencia. The last award he received was last November, when he accepted the “Profession of a Journalist” award given by the Catalan School of Journalism.
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