Josep Renau was an open-minded, curious, active man who, in the course of his long career, has never made any distinction between “major” and “minor” arts. Theory of the poster, writing, controversy, editing, layout, painting, the scenario, engraving, photomontage: these are the numerous fields that Renau has tackled since 1928. His photomontage activity, started in 1929 and went on until the late 1970s. When one asks Renau how he got involved in photomontage, he relates that, as a child, when illustrated magazines were still a luxury, he received from a merchant service captain a gift of English magazines dating from 1914, from which he cut out photos: “I used to do that as other children collect stamps and I classified them in alphabetical order. One day I saw two pictures of George V, King of England, side by side. One of them portrayed a marble bust, the other was a documentary photograph where he was reviewing a division ready to embark for France. I was struck by the enormous differences between them: on one of the photos he was a majestic Jove, on the other, a plain little man, stooped and miserable. On the one side propaganda art, on the other, reality.” From the essay by Carole Naggar

In Spanish with English translations.

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