A love story in photography: the Gilman-González Falla collection

PalmIt's not common, but sometimes, the pages of the history of a certain discipline record the origin of a passion, a connection with art that began at a specific time and place. This is the case of the Sondra Gilman - Celso González-Falla collection, considered one of the most prestigious photography collections in the world, with more than 1,500 works, and which has its beginnings in a handful of images acquired during the 1970s.

At that time, the history of history in 1926 and deceased in 2021, she was collaborating as a volunteer with MoMA, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, where a series of duplicate images by Eugène Atget, born in France in 1857 and considered one of the pioneers of documentary photography, were put up for sale. She had never done so before, but Gilman decided to buy some: the chosen ones were three snapshots of early 20th-century Paris, which she got for $250 each and which became the seed of a connection that would become a fundamental part of her life over time: her bond and, later, also that of her second husband, Celso.

Part of her extensive and historic collection, which González-Falla has continued to expand after Gilman's death, has now arrived in Mallorca thanks to the Fundació Toni Catany, with the exhibition From our hearts, which will be open to the public until April of next year at the Llucmajor International Photography Center.

A dialogue with Catany

The idea, in fact, is that this exhibition – which opened to the public on October 10 – will join Toni Catany: A History of PhotographyThis latest exhibition—which opened just a year ago and is still on view—presents a journey filled with important names, techniques, and formats that engage in a two-way dialogue with Catany, both with his concerns and preferences as a viewer, and with the development of his career as an artist. In this sense, thanks to the exhibition dedicated to the Gilman-González-Falla collection, the work of photographers such as Laurent Elie Badessi—of whom González-Falla describes as "any photo that draws attention for its quality and innovation"—has come into contact with that of Toni Catany, in a dialogue that offers new meanings.

"You see the image of the man with the horse by Badessi, which is part of the collection of Sondra Gilman and Celso González-Falla, and you can't help but think of its Cataña component, how it connects directly with some of his most famous and notable photographs," summarizes Toni Garau, director of the CIF Toni Cat and of the inauguration at the center. But the authors and the works that make up From our hearts They also give the exhibition its own identity and, at the same time, serve to construct another history of photography, one that is structured in parallel to Catany's and converses with it intermittently and constantly.

Mapplethorpe and Klein

Among the names in the exhibition from the Sondra Gilman - Celso González-Falla collection, which contains around 100 photographs by more than 60 photographers, is Eugène Atget himself: two of the three images that served, perhaps unconsciously or involuntarily, to initiate Sondra are on display in Llucmajor. These are two snapshots featuring two urban landscapes where no one passes, appearing almost desolate. However, in both, a staircase stands out, portrayed in a primitive black and white. Despite the similarities, the combination of the two scenes speaks to evident contrasts: in one of the photographs, captured in Saint-Cloud Park in Paris, the scale seems to evoke the majesty and power of the city's light, while in the other, darker and closer, it invites us to think about the passage of time and even...

However, Atget is only one of the photographers who form part of the extensive list of artists who will fill the walls of the Toni Catany International Center of Photography over the next few months, a list that includes some of the most prominent photographers in the world: Robert Mapplethorpe, Helen Cartier-Bresson, Henry Cartier-Bresson, among many others. In the words of Elizabeth Thompson Goizueta, niece of Celso González-Falla and author of one of the texts that accompanies the exhibition, "an art collection reflects the souls of its collectors," and those that can be seen in From our hearts are as heterogeneous as they are captivating. Above all, they demonstrate an enormous sensitivity to the complexity of today's world and the possibilities of capturing it through photography.

Thus, the exhibition includes a delicate portrait of two children captured by Julia Margaret Cameron in 1865—the gaze of one of the dolls portrayed becomes a hook for the viewer, who will hardly be able to either hold it or forget it from William-in. This last image, titled Bikini Captured in Moscow in 1959, more than a photograph, it could be defined as a black-and-white short story, one told through three characters: in the foreground, a smiling young woman wearing the bikini that dominated the scene, with a cheerful and complicit attitude toward the viewer; in the background, an elderly man resting in a folding chair, his expression serious and tired, his eyes closed; and, in the background, another woman attentively observing the events. Observing the image is almost like listening to the voices of all three.

In addition to these, in Llucmajor you can also see, for example, a portrait by Harry Callahan, in this case starring his wife, Eleonor; one of the best-known works by the always evocative Augusto Cantamessa; a portrait of the Venezuelan artist Luchita Hurtado signed by Man Ray and one of the botanical photographs by the British artist Imogen Cunningham, focused on a magnolia, which also serves as a connection with Catany's career: when looking at it, it is inevitable to think of her Still lifes.

The soul of collectors

Yes ok From our hearts allows visitors to get closer to the work of some of the great figures in the history of photography, the exhibition also serves to discover some of the names that aspire to become them. Among the most recent acquisitions by Celso González-Falla, who will turn 90 next year, are numerous pieces by emerging women and also by Mexican and Latin American artists, such as Flor Garduño, Graciela Iturbide, Kati Horna and Andrés Serrano, as well as Manuel Álvarez-Bra. "It not only invites us to review the past and present of photography, but it also pushes us to look towards the future, with the names that are currently setting trends and who will also become part of the history of photography. After all, this is also an important part of the work of collectors: keeping an eye on the present and on the artists is a good way to come into contact with their work," explains Toni Garau.

After all, one of the objectives of From our hearts It also highlights the role of the collector, as CIF director Toni Catany explains. "The exhibition features two portraits of them, one by Robert Mapplethorpe in Sondra and one of Celso with his dog by Andres Serrano, and we wanted to give them a prominent place that serves to vindicate their role. Collectors are very important in the art world and don't always receive the recognition they deserve for the role they play, from a coherent and personal perspective in relation to a chronology that can be interpreted in many ways," argues Garau.

In this sense, the exhibition curator emphasizes that, with this exhibition, the center's programming avenues are also expanding, two and a half years after its inauguration. "We've opened very diverse lines, from dedicating projects to the work of artists such as Christer Strömholm, Micheal Kenna, and Jordi Esteva, and we will continue along this path with new exhibitions dedicated to Joan Fontcuberta and Manuel Álvarez-Bravo, for example. But at the same time, we want the center to be able to see proposals that invite us to look at the photography exhibition we're now opening," he shares. Among the activities scheduled in parallel to the exhibition is a conversation between Celso González Falla himself and Pepe Font de Mora, director for 23 years and advisor to the Foto Colectania Foundation collection, which will take place on Friday, November 21, at 7:30 p.m., at the Llucmajor International Photography Center itself.