Joan Fontcuberta, TREPAT, 2014

In 1914, industrialist Josep Galceran Trepat created an industry for the production of agricultural machinery that would become one of the economic driving forces of Spain during the twentieth century. Cultivated man, attentive to the dynamics of the art of his time, Mr. Trepat commissioned to some of the great masters of international photography for advertising and corporate image of his company. He was a connaisseur and very passionate about the work of Man Ray, Albert Renger-Patzsch, László Moholy Nagy, Alexander Rodchenko, Charles Sheeler, Walker Evans and many other photographers of the historical avant-garde that found in industrial forms an inspiring universe that would result in a complete aesthetical renovation.

A century after its founding, the Trepat Collection reveals itself as an unknown treasure of the history of photography. The MACSA (Museum of Archaeology of Agricultural Systems), in collaboration with the Historical Archive Trepat Tarrega (Lleida) has decided to present an exhibition commemorating the centenary of the Trepat factories. Curated by Joan Fontcuberta,  a creator himself but also a historian and author of several works on the history of Spanish photography. This book published by Éditions Bessard accompanies the exhibition. In his introductory essay, the curator writes: “Looking at these works from a historical perspective and beyond its purely utilitarian origins, the images here masterfully show the experimental path of avant-garde movements: from Cubism to the New Objectivity, from Preciosism to Surrealism, from Constructivism to Social Realism … “.