José Demaría Vázquez

José Demaría Vázquez (born September 18, 1900 in Madrid ; † February 28, 1975 ibid), also known as Pepe Campúa , was a Spanish photographer and film and theater entrepreneur. He was the son of José L. Demaría López "Campúa", also a photographer, whose stage name he took over.

biography

At first he tried to paint himself and visited the studio of the painter Joaquín Sorolla, whom he asked to train him. Over time, he realized that photography and journalism were more of his calling. He broke away from his parents and founded the "Agencia Express". He started working for various media, including El Fígaro, Nuevo Mundo, Mundo Grafico and La Esfera. During the 1920s, he and his father did important work in the photographic documentation of the wars in North Africa. He also traveled to different countries during these years to collect pictures of current events.

In 1922 he achieved great recognition as the only reporter who accompanied Alfonso XIII on his trip to Las Hurdes . During this time he was considered one of the best graphic artists of Spain, next to Alfonso Sánchez Portela, José María Díaz Casariego and Luis Ramón Marín, which for the magazine his father Mundo Gráfico , was assassinated worked until the 1936th

In addition to his work as a reporter, he eventually began to work as a film entrepreneur, initially on behalf of the Royalty cinema . He later founded the Actualidades cinema , where he presented his own works. In 1935 he inaugurated the Madrid-Paris cinema on Gran Vía.

In June 1936 he established the Unión de Informadores Gráficos and assumed the office of its president.

During the Spanish Civil War , he took a particularly large number of photos of the front. However, many of them were not shown until the 21st century.

After the war he returned to the theater and film business and helped many artists in their careers, but without forgetting his original occupation as a photographer. He was allowed to continue working during the Franco dictatorship . He participated in the magazine Fotos, which was founded in 1937 by Manuel Fernández Cuesta and was published until 1963.

He founded the Agencia Gráfica Campúa, which then collaborated with national and foreign media such as La Vanguardia , ABC , ¡Hola! and other. He also often worked for the dictator Franco and for the Spanish royal family.

His studio was first on Gran Vía (then Avenida de José Antonio), between 1941 and 1948, and from 1949 until his death on Calle Bárbara de Braganza . A large number of celebrities visited him there to have their portraits taken.

Personal life

In 1925 he married Esther Piñerúa Fernández del Nogal, with whom he had a daughter. She did not want to continue the family tradition, which is why she closed her father's photo studio after his father's death.

Awards

In 2006 a street in Jerez was named after him, following a proposal by the local cultural association Cine-Club Popular de Jerez. In 2010 his works and those of some of his collaborators were featured in the documentary Héroes sin armas , directed by Ana Pérez de la Fuente and Marta Arribas . This was about the photos from the civil war, especially from the Madrid front.

In 2018 the book Campúa was published, which was written by a descendant.

bibliography

• "Los creadores del reporterismo grafico", José Luis Jiménez García, in La Voz de Jerez, August 13, 2006
• Andalucía en la Historia, Nº 23. (Centro de Estudios Andaluces. Seville, 2009).
• Héroes sin armas, Ana Pérez de la Fuente, Marta Arribas, Documentation 36 '(Sociedad Estatal de Conmemoraciones Culturales. Madrid, 2010).
• José Demaría "Campúa", VIVIENDO ENTRE PHOTOS, Antología de un reportero y artista grafico. Editorial Península 2013. Authors: José F. Demaría "Campúa", Rafael Moreno Izquierdo.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Presidente, don José Demaria V. Campúa. Retrieved July 1, 2018 . 
2. ↑ Publio López Mondéjar: Historia de la fotografía de España . 4th edition. Lunwerg, Barcelona 1999, ISBN 84-7782-660-9 (Spanish).