This story begins the day that Felix Martinezalias ‘Brubaker’, a collector from León who is passionate about Spanish pop scene of the 60sfound a batch of posters of Barcelona groups of the time. “There would be eight or ten posters, although from there I only knew two or three bands: The Polars, the Nots and some other –says Martínez-. But the photos and fonts freaked me out. They had a modern touch that was not common in other posters of that wave. So I looked at the signature, which in all cases was the same: Photo Alfredo. And I thought: ‘Damn, this guy is the cane’& rdquor;.
From there a small obsession was born that led Félix Martínez to search by land, sea and Google for more material from Foto Alfredo and, above all, information to give context to your findings. The collection was expanded but most of the questions remained unanswered. The identity of this Alfredo who had portrayed many of the beat and garage groups that swarmed Barcelona in the mid-60s with an avant-garde eye was still wrapped in a veil of mystery that the scant information collected could not get through. Who was Alfred? What was his last name? Did he work alone or did he host other photographers in his studio? Why did he become the favorite portraitist of a large part of the local pop scene?
Message in a Bottle
To draw attention to the character and seek answers to these questions, Félix Martínez has organized, in collaboration with the musician and cultural activist Alex Cooper (Alejandro Díez, in his civil life), the exhibition ‘Photo Alfredo. Message in a Bottle’, which with the endorsement of the Pruple Weekend festival is presented at El Palacín de León until February 11. “We tried to find Alfredo’s trail, but we were getting almost nothing and that made me desperate. We had some very cool posters but we had nothing to tell about their author. And Alex came up with the idea of taking advantage of the exhibition to send a message and publicly ask that if anyone knows any information or story about Alfredo, they share it with us.”
One of the few first-hand testimonies that Félix Martínez has had so far is that of Delfin Fernandez Martinezwho was a drummer and founding member of The Savages and that in his book of musical memoirs ‘Es la edad. Playing the drums with Los Salvajes’ (Ediciones Chelsea) dedicates a paragraph to explaining a visit by the group to the studio that Alfredo had in the number 87 of the Barcelona street of Conde del Asalto, today Nou de Rambla. There, according to his account, the photographer photographed the musicians, edited their faces, combined them into a poster imitating the covers of the Beatles and Dave Clark 5 albums and made a large print that he placed in the window of his local . “Delfín told us that later many groups would go to Alfredo and tell him that they wanted an image like that of Los Salvajes& rdquor ;.
A comprehensive vision
Apparently, one of the factors that the bands valued was the fact that Alfredo was not limited to taking the photos in his Conde del Asalto studio, but was also in charge of designing the logos, choosing the fonts, composing the images and print the signs, posters and postcards in a small graphic arts workshop that he had at number 74 on Avenida Marqués del Duero (Paral·lel, currently). “He made the image for the bands and controlled everything, from beginning to end,” Martínez points out. I think that in some cases he even tweaked their names, adding the word Group to make them more international. To have that integral vision of how a group had to present itself It was something very advanced for the time. And you can see that he paid a lot of attention to the work of Robert Freeman [fotógrafo de los Beatles] and other English photographers of the moment& rdquor ;.
In any case, this fascinating display of black and white pop imagery constitutes only a small part of the work credited to Foto Alfredo of which we are aware. The signature of “the artists’ photographer” (as it was announced) is also present on numerous record covers and portraits of prominent figures of the local party scene (Peret, Chacho, Chele…), copla and flamenco, as well as of boxers and variety artists –magicians, showgirls, dancers, comedians- who in those days performed in the Paral·lel theaters and in the cabarets of Chinatown. “As a whole, Alfredo’s work offers a very interesting portrait of all that diverse world that was concentrated in a small area of Barcelona at a very specific time, and for this reason it seems so necessary to give it visibility and even claim it as an author& rdquor ;.
sarah montiel
Foto Alfredo’s trail continues in the 70s – “he worked with progressive rock groups, but the style was already different, with color photos taken in the street& rdquor; – and he was lost at the end of that decade. “Of all the material that I have been able to locate, the last thing that appears signed as Foto Alfredo is a photo session that Sara Montiel It was made in a studio on Rocafort Street in 1979 or 1980, says Félix Martínez. They are pretty cool photos, very Warholian, but I have the feeling that the composition is not by Alfredo even though it bears the signature of his studio& rdquor;. From there, nothing.
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The exhibition that is being presented these days in León is circumscribed, in any case, to the pop era of Foto Alfredo, with posters of more or less well-known groups –Los Polares, The Vampires, Los No, Tony Ronald Group, Los Mahuttes…- and others who passed through the Barcelona music scene leaving hardly a trace, such as The Snobs (not to be confused with the band that some time later became Los Buenos), Los Reyes, Grupo X, Los Doubling’s, Luis XV, Los Cron’s or Los Sonámbulos. “We want people to give us information about Alfredo –insists Martínez-, but also about all those groups. I would love to know, for example, who the Snobs were; for the singer or guitarist to appear and explain their story to us& rdquor ;.
If someone wants to answer your call, you can do so by writing to the address [email protected].