ARCHIVO FOTOGRÁFICO BANCO DE ESPAÑA, 1874-2023
The catalogue Archivo Fotográfico Banco de España, 1874-2023 [Banco de España, Photograph Archive. 1874-2023], now available on paper and online, showcases almost ten year's work by the Banco de España's historical archive to retrieve and catalogue the bank's photographic collection. It contains more than 500 photographs by over 120 different photographers, spanning 150 years of Spanish and Banco de España history.
Archivo Fotográfico Banco de España, 1874-2023 features an introduction by Elena Serrano García and Patricia Alonso del Torno and three separate chapters on architecture, employee portraits and public events, with texts by specialists in the respective fields.
The first chapter entitled El Banco de España y la ciudad [The Banco de España and the City] has an introduction by recently-deceased Pedro Navascués Palacio, professor, historian of architecture and member of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando. It includes a large selection of photographs of the Banco de España's central and branch offices in Madrid and elsewhere, taken between 1882 and the present. The second chapter is entitled Los rostros del Banco de España [Faces of the Banco de España]. It starts with a text by photo historian and member of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando, Publio López Mondéjar. This section includes large numbers of portraits of bank employees, taken between 1874 and the late 1940s by a variety of portrait photographers, including Eusebio Juliá, Cristóbal Portillo, Venancio Gombau, Leopoldo Savignac, Orestes Calvet and Manuel Torres Molina, among others. Finally, the third chapter, entitled El Banco de España y la economía [The Banco de España and the Economy] shows the more public side of the bank and includes a piece by María Ángeles Pons Brías, professor in economic history at the University of Valencia. The first picture is one of the few surviving photographs of a shareholders' meeting, taken in 1934. This is followed by a series of other events, reflecting the country's economic and political life.
In short, this is an essential publication which includes many previously unpublished photographs, offering a view in pictures of the centuries-old institution and reflecting the history, architecture, political and economic evolution and socio-cultural changes not only of the bank, but of Spain more widely.
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