Colita The real life of the real Barcelona 

Closely linked to the city of Barcelona, Isabel Steva Hernández, better known as Colita, photographed the real life of the real Barcelona for over forty years. Her notoriety stems from her reportages on the least salubrious neighbourhoods of Barcelona such as the old Barrio Chino, now known as the Raval, or the shantytown of Somorrostro, but also on the eccentricities of the so-called gauche divine, the cinematography of the Barcelona School and the campaigns of the Catalan Nova Cançó. Learning from the painter Paco Rebés and the photographers Oriol Maspons, Julio Ubiña and Xavier Miserachs, she had the ability to portray the whole spectrum of the human condition with an unerring eye. The MACBA Collection owns a comprehensive set of her photographs covering the entire gamut of her work: from images of the gypsy world of Somorrostro, prostitution, the sex-shops and bars of the Barrio Chino, scenes from the music-hall El Molino, to reportages on workers, the madhouse, old people’s homes, vulnerable women and maternity units. Dating from the 1960s to the 1980s, this set of works also includes Colita’s photographs documenting Joan Brossa’s itinerary through Barcelona during the Festa de la Lletra festival in 1979, and the sit-in of intellectuals in Montserrat in 1970. A feminist, social activist and always close to life, we pay tribute to Colita.