Photographs by Josep Planas dialogue with the permanent collection of the Museum of Mallorca

The temporary exhibition, organised jointly with Casa Planas, can be seen free of charge until 15 December

The Museum of Mallorca has inaugurated the temporary exhibition “Postales y Pigmentos. Espejismos de Mallorca” (“Postcards and Pigments. Mirages of Mallorca”). The exhibition, organised jointly with Casa Planas and curated by Marina Planas and Alelí Mirelman, can be visited free of charge until 15th December.

The Consell de Mallorca stresses that the exhibition is the result of the collaboration between one of the most important institutions on our island, the Museum of Mallorca, and an outstanding collection of images from our recent history, Casa Planas.

The aim of the exhibition is to link the permanent collection of 19th and 20th century paintings on display on the third floor of the Museum of Mallorca with photographs taken by Josep Planas i Montanyà in the 1970s.

Thirty-five pictorial works have been chosen which, on certain occasions and in an almost mimetic manner, are replicated in Planas’ images.
Showing the different artistic languages of capturing nature, the interrelation between disciplines, capturing landscapes that have changed due to human intervention and maintaining the memory of past eras are some of the other aims of this exhibition.

The photographer of the tourist boom

Josep Planas i Montanyà (Cardona, Barcelona 1924 – Palma, 2016) settled in Mallorca in 1945 and documented the arrival of mass tourism. The photographer of the tourist boom also introduced postcards, aerial images, colour photos and industrial photography. The founder of Casa Planas, as his granddaughter Marina Planas recalls, was “an entrepreneur in photography, an innovator and a visionary”.

He opened almost twenty photography shops and founded a company dedicated to tourist postcards. In 1947 he founded Casa Planas. He was the first owner of a helicopter on the island, which he used to immortalise the Mallorcan coastline.

In his love of photography, he took portraits of the great film stars of the time who passed through Mallorca, such as Chaplin, Errol Flynn, Joan Fontaine and Grace Kelly. He also portrayed universal cultural figures such as Joan Miró, Blai Bonet and Camilo José Cela.